Opinion: Collecting religious straws

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Quietly beneath the bright lights of the big-city media, the second tier of Republican candidates is scrapping hard across Iowa to gain position for the upcoming Ames straw poll on Aug. 11. Not that they’ll win it necessarily; Mitt Romney seems to be in excellent position to capture that symbolic prize since Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have opted out to save money and maybe face.

But they need to score high enough to appear viable politically and money-wise to continue on to January’s Iowa caucuses.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is taking an unusual twist in his straw poll preparations. Twelve hours a day, he’s got 45 interns in his Iowa campaign office calling McCain supporters and suggesting, since he’s not competing in Ames, they might want to show their support for his values by backing Brownback in the straw poll. It’s worth a try, right?

But the easiest way to gain media attention is through arguments. Conflict, like car wrecks on the freeways, draws attention, even if it’s puffed up at times. The latest flap in this struggle involves Brownback and former Gov. Mike Huckabee. Brownback is a Methodist who flip-flopped to Catholicism. Huckabee is an evangelical Protestant; in fact, he’s an ordained minister.

Brownback seeks an apology from Huckabee for an e-mail that a Huckabee supporter recently sent. The e-mail, written by the Rev. Tim Rude, pastor of the Walnut Creek Community Church, to other supporters called Huckabee ‘one of us’ and said: ‘I know Sen. Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the governor’s.’

Rude later acknowledged he was careless with his words, thought a Catholic could make a great president and even suggested he’d support Brownback if Huckabee drops out. A Huckabee...

spokesman, Eric Woolson, issued a statement saying the reverend was not a campaign staffer, the e-mail was neither approved nor condoned by his campaign and the candidate was pleased that Rude had apologized.

But that wasn’t enough for the Brownback camp, which wants a Huckabee apology to keep the story going.

Alas, just last month it was Brownback apologizing to Romney for one of his field director’s religious e-mails to Iowans raising a lot of questions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Brownback field director, Emma Nemecek, claimed she was merely seeking fact-checking help.

About Mormons from non-Mormons? Right, that makes real sense. What could most non-Mormons possibly verify about Mormon doctrine? They do overseas missions, Steve Young was a great quarterback and that choir is good too. Romney, in fact, is leaning toward making a speech to clarify the role of Mormon faith in his life, his family, 38-year marriage and work, the way John F. Kennedy eased concerns over his Catholicism by speaking candidly to Baptists 47 years ago.

The Brownback e-mail result, of course, was to put that unverified Mormon information out there anyway among potential caucus-goers, uncapturable.

The moral of this story: if you want to start a whisper campaign against political opponents, don’t use e-mails that show your name at the very top. Thus endeth today’s lesson from the political gospel, Book of Samuel.

--Andrew Malcolm