Voters less concerned by Romney’s Mormon faith than in 2008

THE second time around, the shock has worn off.

The prospect of a Mormon president appears to be less alien to South Carolina Republicans who are giving Mitt Romney a second look after his failed White House bid in 2008.

Still, worries about his faith persist in a state where one pastor jokes there are “more Baptists than people.”

Voters preparing for the January 21 presidential primary are weighing whether Romney’s religion should matter so much when they cannot pay their bills and a Democrat many distrust occupies the White House.

“Although Romney’s faith is still a matter of some discussion, it is less of a political problem for him than it was in 2008,” said Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University in Greenville, in South Carolina’s conservative upstate.

“Most Republicans have a generally positive view of Romney, even evangelical Christians.”

Four years ago, the Romney campaign directly took on suspicion about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conservative Christians, including Protestants and Catholics, do not consider Mormons to be Christian, although Mormons strongly do.

The former Massachusetts governor courted evangelical pastors and formed a national faith-and-values steering committee. Romney gave a major 2007 speech in Texas, modelled on John F Kennedy’s pivotal 1960 address on Catholicism, that promised “no authorities of my church or of any other church for that matter” would influence his policies.

This time, Romney has no formal religion committee and rarely mentions his faith unless asked.

In an appearance last week he said the election was about “the soul of America” and described the national debt as a moral issue.

Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry, scrambling to keep his US presidential bid alive, accused the Obama administration yesterday of over-reacting to a video that shows four Marines appearing to urinate on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

“These kids made a mistake. There's not any doubt about it. They shouldn't have done it. It’s bad,” Perry told CNN."

“But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top,” said Perry, who faces a possible make-or-break performance in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.