Rudy-Huck ’08? Between the two of them, the ticket will have one solid conservative.
The phone in the Iowa or New Hampshire kitchen rings. It’s a pollster – blah blah blah. But, as the questions unspool, they assume a particular tendency: Would the fact that X (the religion of candidate Y) believes Z, prejudice you against Y? The phenomenon is called push-polling, and the latest victim is Mitt Romney. (The pollsters mentioned that the Mormon Church, to which he belongs, had no black bishops as recently as the 1970s.) National ReviewONLINE reported the scandal, including speculation that the polling firm had ties to Romney supporters (a devious supporter might push-poll his own candidate to create a scandal, as a form of inoculation). The Romney campaign “emphatically” rejected this “insinuation.” Romney himself had the best word: “Attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American.” In practice, religious politicking is as American as apple pie: Politics is a contact sport. But our ideals, which also restrain our actions, are with Romney – and with George Washington, when he said the government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
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