Each U.S. presidential campaign cycle is certain to find religion having a foreboding seat at the table. With about a quarter of the electorate identified as Christian conservatives or born-again Christians, candidates in both major parties usually try to tailor strategies to get some or most of their support or avoid offending them. Some religionists see elections as critical to their agenda to reshape the nation and society.The 2008 campaign is clearly setting itself up for opportunities and landmines for candidates as religious stances come into focus. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is being sharply criticized for speaking on Friday to the Discovery Institute, proponents of intelligence design, in Seattle. Free-thinkers warn McCain that the institute has led the way in discrediting evolution and promoting an anti-science agenda. McCain has been painstaking at trying to patch fences with religious conservatives like the Rev. Jerry Falwell whom he once called an agent of intolerance.Heretofore, the most common religion-related discussion has centered on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A generation ago, his Mormon father, the late George Romney, one-time Michigan governor, unsuccessfully ran for president. His Mormon faith was less an issue for debate back then, partly because conservative Christians were not then a unified and distinct voting block. George Romney, a six-year governor and a moderate, was leading in polls for the Republican nomination in 1968, but his political stock crashed when, in August 1967, he reversed his support for the war in Vietnam, having previously called it "morally right and necessary." These were the fateful words: When I came back from Vietnam (in November 1965), I’d just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get." His critics subsequently said no respectable candidate for president should fall to brainwashing and admitting to it is like writing stupid on ones forehead.Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza, the past week, set off a massive blog debate over Mitt Romneys electibility with a commentary: Parsing the Polls: Answering the Mormon Question. It got 192 reader responses running to 74 pages of text so far. Evangelical Christians, while they often agree with Mormons on numerous issues, cannot cozy up to them because they say basic Mormon teachings too sharply stray from orthodox Christianity, even if Jesus Christ is in their formal name. Cuillizza quotes a USA Today/Gallup Poll that among a Republican sample, 66 percent said they would support a qualified Mormon and 30 percent said they wouldnt. Seventy-seven percent of independents and 72 percent of Democrats said they could support one. In further analysis, it found that 54 percent of Republicans would vote for a Mormon without reservation, while 42 would not or would only vote after some level of doubt. He referred to a recent CBS News survey finding that 30 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of the Mormon faith, with 25 percent favorable. The same question was asked about other faiths: Protestants (61 percent favorable; 13 unfavorable); Catholicism (51/20); Judaism (48/13) and Christian Fundamentalists (35/26). Only Islam had less public acceptance 15 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable. Compare that to a Washington Monthly story in the fall of 2005: In the late 1960s, the percentage of Americans who said they would not vote for a Jewish or Catholic presidential candidate was in the double digits; by 1999, those numbers had fallen to 6 and 4 percent, respectively (roughly the same as the percentage of voters who say they wouldn’t vote for a Baptist). Compare that to the 17 percent of Americans who currently say they would have qualms electing a Mormon to the White House.Its commonly believed Romney will have to deliver a turning point, watershed speech directed to his party about his faith and put to rest fears that his religion of secret temple ceremonies and women denied parity in church leadership roles wont have consequences for the nation.They say that speech will need to parallel what Catholic candidate John Kennedy was able to tell pastors in Houston in 1960 that his faith was private and, in no way, would it give the Pope a place in government decision-making. Short of a strong, disarming speech, Romneys detractors will bring up those things that commonly raise eyebrows about Mormon: special holy undergarments, the churchs controversial history with blacks, the idea that Mormon men have the potential to become gods on their own and rule on other planets, and even polygamy, despite it being officially ended in the church in 1890.But Romney wont be alone. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani can be expected to face scrutiny about his practices as a Catholic. Whats being called the weirdness factor is his 14-year marriage to his second cousin that was annulled. U.S. News& World Report put it this way: Giuliani’s first marriage (of 14 years to Regina Peruggi) was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church because they had not obtained the required church dispensation necessary when second cousins marry. Critics say the ex-mayor, best known for his rallying New York after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has given assorted explanations for his marriage, even that he had always thought Regina was his third cousin, not his second cousin.

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