The Economist, May 26TH-June 1ST, 2012
Page 48
Lexington; Moral quandary
Mitt Romney wants to talk about the economy, not social issues. It isn't working out that way
In many respects, Mitt Romney makes a perfect spokesman for America's religious right. He certainly looks the part: his clothes crisply creased, his hair neatly gelled, his face habitually frozen in a look of square-jawed conviction. His personal life seems blameless. He is a regular churchgoer, and appears to live by the tenet of his faith. He married his high-school sweetheart, who bore him five strapping sons, who in turn have provided him with 18 grandchildren. He is a teetotaller, but not, like George W. Bush, as a break with the waywardness of his youth. Mr Romney spent much of his youth as a missionary, trying to persuade the French to give up wine. He once told a reporter that his greatest failing was that he devoted only one day a week to helping the needy(smugness is clearly a bit of an issue, too). The closest he has come to a scandal is the revelation that in his teens he once forcibly cut the hair of one of his schoolmates, in a prank that strayed across the line into bullying.
Yet Mr Romney does not like to talk about his faith in any but the broadest terms, presumably to avoid reminding voters that he is Mormon, a religion that many Americans find peculiar and some doctrinaire Christians consider heretical...
David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
June 6, 2012,
National Central Library,
Taipei City
