ExMormons Prepare For Another Potential Romney Candidacy
Salt Lake News -- published June 20, 2014
Employing skills they acquired as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some former Mormons are amassing emergency supplies amid rumors that another presidential bid by Romney may be imminent.
"I work in an all-Mormon office and my desk is by the copy machine," said Samuel Petersen, an ExMormon from Sandy, Utah. "I don't care if I lose my job. He runs again and I'm going off the grid."
He's not the only one.
"I was an actual woman in one of his binders last time around," said Sally McPhee, a former Mormon from Somerville, Massachusetts. "I can't go through that again, I don't care what I have to do."
Overexposure to their pro-Romney Mormon relatives and coworkers during the 2012 Romney campaign, as well as revulsion with the governor himself, has led many former LDS to devise exit strategies should "the one and only true candidate" decide to again enter the race.
"I've set up a private sanctuary away from everyone," Homer Smoot of Saint George, Utah told the News. "It's remote, sound-proof, and has a tiny padded nook where I can curl into the fetal position and moan."
Meanwhile, those who can't escape their present situations are pleading with news outlets to limit campaign coverage if Governor Romney decides to enter the race again.
"I know he was running for president and all. But the media had no idea how damaging the constant exposure was for people like us," said Julie Frost, an ExMormon from Farmington, Utah, who believes that the entire 2012 Romney campaign should have been condensed into a single visiting stake high councilman's talk.
"For the sake of our sanity, they should have limited it to one media event," Frost explained. "Just picked a stifling hot Sunday afternoon, started with his cheesy anecdote about Ann's 'couple of Cadillacs,' gone on to the faith-promoter about strapping the dog on top of the car, filled that tiresome unprepared mid-section with his repetition of, 'I like cars,' came to a close with him insulting 47% of his audience, and then ended in the name of the corporation."
"Instead we had to listen to him drone on for a year, in that same stake president's monotone," Frost bemoaned. "It was agony."
Citing the special nature of both the last and the upcoming elections, other ExMormons remain fatalistic about what they see as the inevitable.
"In 2012 the Republicans were faced with foiling the reelection of the first black president. In 2016 they will probably be poised to block the election of the first woman," said former Mormon, Kyle Rogers, of Bountiful, Utah. "It makes sense that they'd pick a Mormon to do that."
"I'm prepared to stick it out and endure to the end," Rogers declared. "But then, I can take anything … I have a degree from BYU-Idaho."
***In other news: Be aware, Gentle Readers, that a number of progressive Mormon bloggers and activists, including Kate Kelly, are scheduled for church disciplinary courts this Sunday, June 22 2014. Read more about "the real Mormon Moment" here. Also read Kate's letter of defense here.
Friday, June 20, 2014
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If Romney ran again it would bring on a lot of "just shoot me" moments.
ReplyDeleteYeah, ok, but better than Rand Paul? The poor Republicans...
DeleteYikes! What horrible choices the Republicans are facing. I would rather see Jon Huntsman run again. But then he may be too reasonable and pose too big of a threat on the Democrats. I would just rather not think too much about 2016.
ReplyDeleteJJ, no kidding. I thought that Huntsman was one of the few Mormon politicians I almost liked. Then I discovered he's an ExMormon.
ReplyDeleteJono, I didn't mean to frame my response about RP as a question. But hopefully you got my point. Their options are so crazy they're back to Romney. For former Mormons like JJ and me that would mean listening to our old stake president drone on for another year. Not pretty
What if it were between Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and /Romney? Romney might be the least offensive candidate if the three. I'd like to think Hillary could take any one of them out, but . . .
ReplyDeleteI have family members who are not quite as nutty as most of my dad's batshit-crazy LDS relatives, but they definitely have their blind spots, areas where sanity just sort of bypassed them, or however one would care to describe the lapses with reality these otherwise good people demonstrate, particularly when it comes to The Candidate Mitt. In previous elections, their collective contributions to the political process were to vote. Period. I'm not meaning to put them down for that alone, as it's all I've ever done, either, and it may be all I ever do. I just don't know. (I was too young to vote in the 2012 election. I missed it by mere weeks.)
These relatives of whom I speak, however, crossed over the bridge of normal political activity to obsessions, compulsions, or some other forms of extremity when it came to the Romney for President campaign.
One family of them hosted -- at the request of a stake president, I think -- an elaborate luncheon at which one of the Romney sons spoke. This relative and his wife provided the venue (they have a large and lovely home) enticed hundreds of people to show up, fed them via an extremely pricy and popular caterer in their area, and funded this operation entirely by themselves.
Another relative left Utah every weekend for a month to travel either to Nevada or Arizona to campaign where the votes actually mattered, since Utah was not a battle ground state,
Another contributed so much to the Romney campaign -- officially or otherwise -- that she was given a life-sized cut-out of the Mittster, which she proudly displayed in her living room. (I'd love to know what she did with the life-sized paper doll after the election.) I heard, though I cannot confirm it, that this particular relative had such a strong reaction to the election results that she was eventually prescribed Zoloft in order for her to get on with her life.
Another relative -- an extremely sweet, kind, charming young woman, was unable to go to work at her teaching job on the day following the election. This normally friendly person, who was LITERALLY voted Miss Congeniality in the 2010 local beauty pageant 2010 that feeds into Miss America pageant, had so many Facebook fights with friends over the election and its outcome that she suspended her Facebook.
account.
If Mitt goes for another round of presidential politics, I'm genuinely afraid for the state of mental health of this extended branch of my family. My dad's siblings and their spouses are, for the most part, too bonkers to be allowed to run loose without their keepers, anyway. They're beyond repair. The other relatives, however, are good people who have, in my opinion, taken what they considered a to be good thing to extremes. I have no idea what I can do to help them if Willard again inserts himself into the political process.
Just the mental image of that life-sized cut out is truly terrifying!
DeleteIt would be great for scaring little kids on Halloween.
DeleteIt's hard to imagine the Republicans would be stupid enough to pick Romney again. But then again …
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm rooting for 9-9-9 Herman Cain. He will lose (obviously) but he's so entertaining.
Michelle Bachmann would be a kick too!
Delete