Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam says Mitt Romney can't win the presidency because of the past history of polygamy in the Mormon church. But what Beam doesn't mention is that the successful business executive and former Massachussets governor has had only one wife, and has been married to her for decades. Of the four Republicans considered front-runners in the race - Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, only Romney is still on his first marriage.

Still, Beam thinks an upcoming PBS documentary, The Mormons, will hurt Romney's chances. I think he's wrong. Here's what Beam writes...

The shows do not paint a flattering portrait of what filmmaker Helen Whitney calls "one of the most powerful, feared, and misunderstood religions in American history."

The Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons call themselves, cooperated with " The American Experience " and "Frontline, " the show's co-producers. Whitney in turn pays the church the compliment of taking its faith very seriously indeed. The positives are there for all to see: the Mormons' triumph over persecution in mid-century America; the dramatic "exodus" from Illinois to Utah, the "country no one else wanted," according to Wallace Stegner , a great admirer of the Mormon pioneers; the devotion to family and community.

But also on view are doctrines and practices that most Americans would view as strange.

... What does it all mean? PBS claims it has 75 million viewers a week. Let's say one-tenth - no, one-twentieth - of that audience watches "The Mormons." That's almost 4 million men and women who will know more about the Mormon faith than Romney might wish them to know. It's bad math for the Mittster.

Well, let's think about Beam's math for a moment. Who in America is most likely to sit through a four-hour documentary about Mormons?

Mormons!

If Beam is right and four million Americans watch the PBS documentary The Mormons, chances are good that some significant number of them will be Mormons, discounting the "bad math," as Beam calls it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a/k/a, the Mormon Church, reported a worldwide membership of 12,560,869 at the end of 2005, with 5.8 million members in the United States, making it the fourth-largest religious body in the United States (after Catholics, Baptists and Methodists). A survey by the City College of New York in 2001 estimated that there are 2,787,000 LDS adults in the United States.

So - what if the PBS documentary is perceived by America's Mormons as an attack on Mormons generally - or what if they percieve its timing as a sly attempt to undermine Romney's presidential aspirations? What then? Might it not galvanize Mormons to back Romney with more fervor - and more money?

Beam forgets that Romney isn't running for president right now. Not really. He's running for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. He doesn't particularly care right now what northeastern or West Coast liberals think about him and his faith. To the extent that the PBS documentary would damage him among those folks, the good news for Romney is it is being released early enough in the campaign cycle that it will be largely a forgotten footnote by the late summer of 2008 when Romney, if he wins the nomination, will be trying to win over moderate swing voters.

Yet the same PBS documentary could galvanize Romney's support among a rather sizable group - the fourth largest religious group nationwide - perhaps helping him with fundraising and votes in the crowded GOP primary field.

According to the LDS Church, there are more than 22,000 Mormons in Iowa, home of the first presidential caucuses, and more than 8,000 Mormons in New Hampshire, home of the first primary. Even South Carolina, home of the crucial second primary a week after New Hampshire, has more than 33,000 Mormons. Nevada, where Republicans are now planning to hold a presidential caucus on Feb. 7, just two days after the multi-state primaries that will follow South Carolina,  has more than 167,000 Mormons. Colorado, another state considering moving its primary earlier in the election calendar, has 128,000 Mormons.

And then there is California.

Religious conservatives don't do well in California in a general-election race, but remember Romney has to win the primary first before he worries about that. If the race was only between Romney and a social-liberal Republican like, say, Giuliani, in California, Giuliani would clearly win it. But the GOP field is much more crowded than that - and the stacking of so many states' primaries near the start of the election season means the field will still be crowded when the race moves to the Golden State. And California has three quarters of a million Mormons.

So, when the Boston Globe's Alex Beam suggests you do the math, I agree with him. The math is just a lot more complex and involved than just counting the number of Americans who watch that PBS documentary in a few weeks.

Semi-related Update: A non-Mormon Tennessee blogger endorses Romney.