Why Romney's Religion is Helping Him

I think over the past six months I've read at least 50 newspaper articles about whether Mitt Romney's mormonism will hurt his campaign for the presidency. If you pay attention to the new sidebar, you'll see a new article about it at least once a day. What I find ironic is that that very question is giving him free publicity to people who wouldn't have given him the time of day otherwise. For most people, in their minds Mitt Romney = "the mormon candidate". Can the average republican name any other candidate besides McCain, Romney and Guiliani? Those 50 articles are 50 articles that the other candidates do not have. As for the polls, most of which say that a significant proportion of Americans say they won't support a Mormon candidate, I don't really believe them because when you vote for president, you vote for a candidate, not a religion. By the time the primary election actually rolls around, I bet most people will have almost forgotten that Romney is a Mormon and will instead know quite a bit about where he stands on issues. But it will be the Mormon question that will have gotten him all that initial "free" publicity. And if he wins the primary, I highly doubt that evangelicals will collectively oppose a candidate who is against abortion and gay marriage and vote for Hilary instead.

Moral of the story: All publicity is good publicity.