After the Obama campaign criticized Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) for what they felt was an attack on Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s religion, the conservative magazine National Review is giving Schweitzer its “Golden Ass” award.
Kevin Williamson added this in National Review:
Does Governor Schweitzer really want to go down that road? His own ancestors are ethnic Germans from Ukraine. What were they like in the nineteenth century? Germans in Ukraine were not especially nice to Jews in those days. The governor’s father fought in World War II — but what was his great grandfather like?
And if we want to get into the sins-of-the-fathers business, it is worth noting that you do not have to go back to the 19th century to find a polygamist in the family of Barack Obama: His father was one.
Meanwhile, Politico has the headline, “Mitt Responds to Schweitzer Mormon Slam.”
“The governor meant what he said, precisely. It has nothing to do with Mr. Romney’s faith or the Mormon church, both of which the governor knows reject polygamy,” Schweitzer adviser Eric Stern said in a statement to POLITICO.
“My dad’s dad was not a polygamist. My dad grew up in a family with a mom and a dad and a few brothers and one sister,” (Romney) said. “They lived in Mexico and lived a very nice life there from what I understand and then when he was , I think five or six years old there was a revolution in Mexico. They escaped. I believe they went to El Paso first, and were helped by the government to get on their feet and then his dad went around the country, Los Angeles, I think Idaho, Utah, went broke more than once. My dad had a very tough upbringing.”
Who has the bigger anti-Mormon problem? The Daily Beast, which originally reported the Schweitzer remarks says it is the Democrats.
Polls show 27 percent of Democrats would not vote for a Mormon, versus 18 percent of Republicans. There are votes in anti-Mormonism, but the Obama campaign must resist any temptation to play on it.
Click here to read the full piece by Peter Beinart.