ExMormons Brace Themselves For Romney 2016

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.