Quote:
Originally Posted by YOhio
Merely being an Evangelical is not a status offense amongst Mormons. Evangelicals who have held political office, such as John Ashcroft and George W. Bush, can be quite popular in Utah. Few Mormons hate Huckabee just because he's an Evangelical. Most hate him because he's a religion-baiting asshole.
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The ones you list haven't run qua Evangelicals per se. Bush, for example, is not necessarily as associated with any denomination as Romney or Huckabee. His father was originally a Protestant mainliner. They talk the God talk in a way that's ecumenical and pleasing to Mornons. Huckabee and Romney respectively ran as an Evangelical and a Mormon.
Now, before you remonstrate, let me say that Romney embraced the "Romney the Mormon candidate" label the day he decided to pander to the Evangelicals. He made religion an issue because basically abortion, gay marriage, and anit-immigration is all they care about. He only compounded this with his religion speech. He could have run like McCain and made religion a non-issue by being moderate on social issues like he did in Massachusettes. In that case his religion would have been a non-issue, and the Evangelicals would still have hated him like they do anyway.