When Barack Obama, who wasn't my first choice to win the Democratic nomination in 2008, was nominated, I found myself surprised once I overcame a severe disappointment, and found myself listening to him with rapt attention and a hopeful heart. I found myself wanting him to be for me - in every way - a repudiation of President Bush, Bush policies and Bush's political party.
But after his election, I had to redefine my heretofore idealistic perception of politcal reality. I had to understand that in seeing and hearing what I wanted to see and hear from Barack Obama, I set myself up for a severe and jolting disillusionment. As President, Barack was not invested in revenge, repudiation and rejection of the self-inflicted 8-year curses a majority of the Ameican voters had twice handed the rest of the country.
Invested in my liberal version of revenge and repudiation, I refused to see Obama as he had always been and never stopped being. He had led me on in that I allowed his speeches to encourage me to vote for him based on my assumption that he and I were on the same page ... when in reality we were not.
My disappointment, however, was greatly assuaged by an expectation of mine that was not disappointed.
Barack Obama - along with his centrist approach that I had not desired nor perceived - brought competence back to the presidency. He brought back intellectual honesty that was not driven nor supported by handlers and manipulators who had conspired to install a semi-intellectual Texan with Ivy League roots in the White House.
That was important to me because whether he disappointed me or not, Barack Obama never once led me to think he was not a capable politician; not up to his tasks and would be someone's puppet unable to articulate his reasoning.
So for me President Obama - agree with him or disagree with him - is someone who remains predictably reliable to preside in the tradition of all wide presiders with whom I have experience.
Having said that, I want to explain why my most current Mormon political hero is not the republican candidate. Rather it is Senator Harry Reid, who has been willing from the get go to take an aggressive opposition to fellow Mormon Mitt Romney ... and for what I suspect are the same gut reasons that I have.
Senator Reid knows the type well as do I. You can see them in an almost cookie-cutter format passing back and forth between Washington and the Great Basin. Robert Bennet's loss was the country's loss and his replacement is a political joke. Orrin Hatch, whom I have not held in high regard since the early 80's, would be the wiser of the voting choice in Utah compared to the limited political range of his opponent.
I'm sure Harry Reid has seen more of the type in politics and our congregations than I have. However, on any given Sunday in almost any Mormon congregation in America one is likely to encounter some socially conservative opinion of this type expressed in Gospel Doctrine classes or other meetings.
I too have seen and intimately worked around the type within my culture and heritage over my lifetime as a social worker and political activist.
Now Americans must understand that Mormon political candidates are not considered to be among the "the Lord's anointed" and who are not to be criticized ( a practice of respect limited to Church leadership). Mormon politicians do not merit uncritical support or votes just because they share the same beliefs and particularly when the other candidate isn't a Mormon.
Politics and religion can be troublesome where one particular religion is predominant.
In the mid 60's, the Democratic congressman from Idaho, Ralph Harding, was the commencement speaker at my high school graduation. He later lost his re-election because he spoke out against the connection between then LDS apostle (and former Eisenhower Secretary of Agriculture) Ezra T. Benson and the John Birch Society. Benson's son was the regional authority for the JBS in Utah.
His congressional record was admirable but he lost to another Mormon because in a predominantly Mormon district in Idaho, he was perceived as having dis-respected one of the Lord's anointed. That was then. Nowadays the predominant political views in the red state Rockies where the church has influence are conservative and republican.
I've seen statistics that indicate that a mere 10% of American Mormons are liberal or democrats. Harry Reid, my wife Lietta and I are three of them.
In 1968 my first voting year, I voted for Nixon and repeated that vote in 1972 because McGovern was more pacifist that righteous warrier in my view.
In 1976 I voted for Carter cause I was righteous, Nixon lied, Ford pardoned him, and Carter was religious.
In 1980 I voted for Reagan cause I thought Carter was impotent with the Iranians.
In 1984 I voted for Reagan cause Mondale was Carter's former VP.
In 1988 I voted for George Bush because Dukakis was portrayed as a doofus by Rush Limbaugh (to whom I was listening faithfully on the radio while driving around Multnomah and Clark counties)
In 1992 I voted for Clinton because it was the economy stupid and because it had become obvious that Limbaugh only knew one song but that song had 37 tedious verses to it.
By 1996, realizing that (1) The Republicans only had the Limbaugh hymn to sing and (2) I had far more liberal leanings than conservative, I voted to re-elect Clinton despite the histrionics from that right wing whiners.
So in 2000, when G.W. Bush was singing off key but faithfully as marionetted by Rovians from the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell hymnbook, I almost immediately recognized a real doofus when saw one. When a sitting U.S. President and his party lied to us to launch an unnecessary invasion of Iraq, my inner liberal became my crusted hard and scarred outer shell.
If anyone who knows me thinks my opinions have changed or mellowed from the first days of my entry into public activism ... it should be obvious by what I say and do that if anything I have become more predictable and aggressive in my opinions.
In my opinion, the same can be said for candidate Romney.
If you think somehow that a sober, serious and statesmanlike sense of kindness, tolerance and social justice has somehow alighted on his politically aspiring shoulders in these past few weeks or months ... you are naive and whistling in the dark.
That same tactless and arbitrary spirit that has been part and parcel of his style - the spirit he has manifested many times during the campaign when responding to people who disagreed with him - that same spirit would be with him in his new exaltation should he win.
"Boston Spirit magazine reported last month that when gay activists met with him in his office in 2004, as Romney was backing a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, Romney remarked, 'I didn't know you had families.'
Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the landmark case that won marriage rights for gays and lesbians before the Supreme Judicial Court, asked what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter about why the governor would block the marriage of her parents.
According to Goodridge, Romney responded, 'I don't really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don't you just tell her the same thing you've been telling her the last eight years.'
Romney's retort enraged a speechless Goodridge; he didn't care, and by referring to her biological daughter as 'adopted,' it was clear he hadn't even been listening.
By the time she was back in the hallway, she was reduced to tears. 'I really kind of lost it,' says Goodridge. 'I've never stood before someone who had no capacity for empathy.'" - Michelangelo Signorile Editor-at-large, HuffPost Gay Voices
I suspect that many Mormons who know me are mystified by my hostility towards this particular Mormon politician and that is not something over which I have any control or desire to control. The one thing we cannot do is control how our words and attitudes are perceived by others no matter how hard we try.
It seems much safer to simply accept the idea that honesty is the best policy. The safest thing I can do for anyone who gets close to me - especially if flames are shooting from my eyes and lips - is to flat out declare that what you see and hear from me is who and what I am.
I have no problems with a Mormon becoming President of the United States. But not this particular Mormon candidate at this particular time.
