Ryan Streeter
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A couple weeks ago, when Newsweek ran its ridiculous Mitt The Mormon cover, I said that Mormonism was likely mainstreamed enough to become less of an obstacle this election cycle.
Today's Gallup poll makes me look a bit too optimistic. Resistance among churchgoing Protestants to the idea of voting for a Mormon remains just about as high (22%) as it has always been. Romney was facing this same obstacle in 2007, and it doesn't appear that his continual presence in the public square - or his frontrunner status - has done anything to change how people think about Mormonism and politics.
What is also pretty amazing is how age has very little to do acceptance of Mormonism. Education seems to be the biggest driver of tolerance/intolerance. It's also interesting that Democrats are even more distrusting of Mormons (Romney and Huntsman can at least take some primary season comfort from that).
The strange irony in all of this is that Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are about as establishment as the GOP field gets. In other words their faith plays very little into their public persona, dominated as their public profiles are by their public achievements and private sector wealth and commercial experience.
They are hardly "faith-based" in the same way that a Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain is. And yet their faith creates a very real obstacle that doesn't show any signs of minimizing however mainstream they have helped to make that faith.
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