Mormon Issue Not Gone for Mitt

RUSH: Kelly in St. George, Utah, welcome.

CALLER: Hi. Glad to talk to you again.

RUSH: Hi. Thank you.

CALLER: Hey, I’ve got a question for you. Do you think that Mitt Romney has overcome the Mormon issue?

RUSH: Uh, maybe in the primaries, but it will be back if he wins the nomination. It will be huge.

CALLER: Well, we’re not as bad as everyone makes us out to be.

RUSH: Wait a minute. Wrong way to look at it. The truth is not relevant. The economy is not bad, either, but look what everybody thinks.

CALLER: True.

RUSH: We’re winning the war in Iraq, look what everybody thinks. All it’s going to take is the Drive-By Media — and you wait ’til the Clintons get hold of this. You wait ’til the Clintons get hold of this Mormon stuff. They’re going to play that card. I’m gathering you’re a Mormon?

CALLER: I am.

RUSH: Okay. Well, you know, I don’t want to offend you, but you know already that there are people out there, ‘That’s just a cult,’ and then they’re going to be comparing it to Scientology, and they’re not going to care whether it’s true or not, they’re just going to be trying to make or create perceptions. The purpose would be to put Romney on defense, to have to explain and justify his religion, when nobody will be asking the Clintons about their religion, and then it’s going to be up to how he and his campaign decide to handle it and deal with it. It can be overcome, but I mean your question was, ‘Is it still hurting him?’ And I don’t think it is now, but it could well come back if one of his Republican opponents wants to start playing games with it, if it gets really tight, and if we go to a convention without a nominee, yeah, it could still come up, even before the Clintons get to it.

CALLER: That’s true. It’s hard to watch, but at least it’s interesting to have it in the forefront and to examine it a little bit. You just hope it gets a fair shot.

RUSH: Yeah, but keep in mind that a presidential campaign in many cases is like a trial in court. It’s not so much the evidence as what you can make the jury think. I’m not trying to be cynical here, but I mean when you go into court, let’s say it’s a criminal trial, the perp is either innocent or guilty. You’ve got the defense lawyer, who probably knows, trying to convince the jury that what he knows isn’t true. You got the prosecution, they’ve got their ideas, they’ve got their evidence. It’s a matter of who does the best job of convincing the jury what the facts are. Because the facts can sometimes be explained away. The same thing here in a presidential campaign, that’s why it’s going to be important how Romney and the campaign decide to deal with it. He’s dealt with it great so far with that speech down in Texas.