The big news from the Big Mo-Publican Primary this week is that Mitt Romney did not show for the Conservative Principles Conference in Iowa last week, while Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, and Haley Barbour lined up to pimp their social conservative credentials. After the drubbing Mitt took in Iowa last time around, it does my proudly Mormon heart some good to see him playing it cool and not pandering to folks so high on their own righteousness they refuse to recognize him as a fellow Christian.
And perhaps it won’t be such a Big Mo-Publican primary after all? It looks like Ambassador Jon Huntsman’s team of numerologists thinks 2016 offers better odds than 2012 for a presidential bid. Probably a good call: until this Tea Party thing runs its course, Hunstman would be roadkill in the primaries. Plus, delaying a bit gives him a better chance of enlisting his favorite prog rock band, Dream Theater, to come on tour with him.
Finally, did anyone notice that Tim Pawlenty joined the race? Last week, the former Minnesota governor became first to declare his 2012 candidacy. If you watch religion (which you must if you’re reading this site), Pawlenty is a former Catholic-turned-Baptist who attends the Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a suburban megachurch pastored by Rev. Leith Anderson, the Minnesotan-mild-mannered head of the National Association of Evangelicals. Which means the 2012 race as it stands looks like a thoroughly correlated (our word for orthodox) Mormon (Romney), a recently-minted Catholic (Gingrich), a Mississippi Presbyterian (PCA) (Barbour), and a suburban megachurcher (Pawlenty). At this point, with Romney’s entrenched national operation, it seems like a Romney candidacy and depressed turnout among evangelicals in November 2012 may be the most likely scenario, but I’d never, never underestimate the suburban megachurch crowd.
