So I hear tell the brilliant choice of Paul Ryan as second fiddle to Romney’s barely tolerable to its staunchest supporters ticket had proven a boon in the polls. Doesn’t that always happen? Probably. But the most important thing is that it shows that Romney will not do what people suspect all Mormons do: staff every available position with BYU alumni. Granted, it is probably the token “gentile” among Romney’s cabinet choices…

Of course that’s not true.

While the Mormon church probably encourages that sort of thing normally (based on anecdote I have witnessed, which could hardly be considered solid evidence), in this case it would be counterproductive. Romney has more money than he could possibly spend. The only reason he could possibly have for trying to become president (half-heartedly, it would appear) is that someone put him up to it.

It seems to me that Mormondom has been going out of its way to promote itself by the prominence of its holdings. Those holdings include its people (in American politics, Mormons are over represented relative to their population), its capital city (Salt Lake City has overachieved in hosting a basketball team, a major airport, and the 2002 Winter Olympics). Among adherents, Romney may be the best shot at the American Presidency in the next few decades:

  1. At a time of renewed Gilded Age division of wealth, worship of the Robber Barron class is at its peak.
  2. Romney has passed his test case of surviving a term as governor of a state not known for either being wholly owned by the Mormon Church or for being of a general right-wing bent.
  3. He looks like what right wing loons think a President should look like, which always works out well (see Harding, Warren G.).
  4. His immediate and sycophantic bowing to the right wing makes Obama’s immediate and sycophantic bowing to the right look amateurish at best.

Interesting, no? Perhaps more interesting is the crackpot conspiracy theory I came up with about five minutes ago and for which I have no evidence whatsoever:

-alert- -alert- -alert-
-begin crackpot conspiracy theory-
To top off what should be a crackpot conspiracy theory, I would posit that the real reason that Romney hasn’t shown his birth certificate …sorry, wrong crackpot conspiracy theory… tax returns is that he was successfully hiding his income in overseas banks for years. When he came clean during the tax-dodging amnesty a couple of years ago, the Mormon Church has let him slide on his tithing. Such a scandal would be really hard to explain to the rank-and-file Mormon family kicking in $3,000 a year on a meager $30,000 annual earnings. But the Church really neeeeeeeeeds this one. So we will never see another scrap of tax-related Romney data. Such a revelation would be devastating to lower class Mormons and would do real lasting harm to the credibility of the Mormon Church.
-end crackpot conspiracy theory-