Could a Mormon Be Elected U.S. President?


Some big changes are impending in the way we select presidential candidates. By its own law, New Hampshire must be the first state to conduct a presidential primary, now set for Jan. 22, 2008 (Democratic) and Jan. 29 (Republican). But the populous states of Florida, New Jersey and Illinois are reported to be ready to join California and nearly a dozen other states in adopting a common date of Feb 5. (The Iowa caucuses, Jan. 14 and 21, respectively) are more conversations than true tests of voter sentiment). The bunching will surely mean a considerable alteration in the way contenders spend their time and money.

Regional primaries in five or six geographical groupings would make a lot more sense in easing the strain on candidates, who now may feel that they have to crisscross the country to touch several bases the same day. It also could have the effect of bringing more attention to relatively small states like Connecticut (primaries are set for March 4).

One way often suggested to place the states on a more equal footing would be to abolish the electoral college and determine the results of presidential elections strictly by majority popular vote. That would end the winner-take-all system that now enables a candidate, who wins only one more vote than totaled by his or her opponents, to claim all the electoral votes in a particular state. But that is a reform requiring substantial study of its potential side-effects and, any event, no such change appears likely in the foreseeable future.

The announcement by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination has stimulated discussion because of his Mormon religion. He made his announcement in Michigan where his father George, also a Mormon who had been chairman of American Motors, an automobile manufacturer, served three terms as governor before contesting unsuccessfully with Richard Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. Would Mitt’s religious beliefs, that are different from those of other Christians, disqualify him from making independent judgments as president?

The same question has been asked in different form about many candidates of untraditional political background – Catholics, Jews, blacks and women, to name a few. John F. Kennedy overcame prejudice against Catholics, I would hope once and for all, with his forthright assurance in 1960 that he would be his own man and not the agent of Rome. He quipped about his apocryphal one-word cablegram sent to the Pope after his victory, "Unpack." A woman candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, received the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1984, and Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Jew, was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2004.

We now have a Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota. A number of Mormons such as U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah have served honorably and effectively in Congress. I would hope that this means that we are more willing to judge a candidate by his or her pledge to support the Constitution rather than by some sort of religious means test.


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Let us give credit to President Bush for accepting the new arrangement whereby North Korea will dismantle its nuclear weapons capability in return for food and economic aid. Mr. Bush also gave a strong rebuke to his pugnacious former United Nations representative, John Bolton, whom he had so long championed, for criticizing the agreement.

It has been said that the present arrangement is very little different from the earlier agreement reached in the Clinton administration and violated by North Korea. The Bush administration contemptuously dismissed what had been done under Clinton. The difference this time is that China showed genuine distress over North Korea’s explosion of a nuclear device last fall and used its influence to augment that of the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia. Maybe a change of American tactics would enlist a similar response toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions.


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From time to time I have opined about the seeming ability of squirrels to outwit the humans who seek to impede their voracious appetite for the contents of birdfeeders. Now I must ingest my own words. No fewer than 10 times I have watched the same gray squirrel crawl up to the inverted plastic bowl-baffle on our feeder and butt his head against it trying to nudge it aside. It’s hard to believe, I know, but I may have discovered a dumb squirrel.

Things are looking up in other respects. We’ve had our spell of zero weather after all, Lake Wononscopomuc has frozen over, temperatures are right for a good maple syrup season, the birds are beginning to chirp with the longer days and at least one bear and her cub have emerged to prove that they are still with us. All’s right with this part of the world.


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Speaking of which, there is nothing more evocative to me than the call of a locomotive whistle — the mournful cry of steam escaping through a valve from a steam locomotive and, more recently, the electric chime or air horn blast from a diesel. What brings this to mind is that during the big storm of last week I could distinctly hear the crossing warnings from a diesel on the HousaTonic Rail Road in the Canaan area. Lower air pressure seemed to conduct the sound.

I remember when, as a boy in northern Illinois, I used to hear the steam wail of a Chicago & North Western passenger train and could imagine sleeping car passengers snugly reading in their berths. Or I could hear air blasts from a high-speed electric train on the North Shore Line. These brought an escape in my mind to some exotic place on the other side of the country that existed only in my imagination, but where the world was made up of beautiful scenery served by numerous railroads on which I had a pass that enabled me to ride any train. Does anyone share my vision?


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This column will take a brief respite while my best pal and I autoperambulate to an elderhostel at Natural Bridge, Va. See you again soon.

 

 

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