Ancestral polygamy: Irrelevant or Unimportant

Weekly Presidential Politics - 6/13/07

(Blogger's note: A busy week with work and the personal life has not allowed me to write a blog this week. Therefore, I'll go the vault for this one. I wrote this entry on my site a couple months ago. I find it still holds today, when last week I made the statement that Romney's Mormonism is a roadblock on his path to the presidency.)


"Do well and you will have no need for ancestors." - Voltaire

The latest from the Presidential rumor mill is that Mitt Romney's great-grandfather was a polygamist. My immediate thought: Who cares?!

Still, the fact that the article exists is troubling. I am troubled by the tactic used in the article by the two Associated Press writers. Take a look at their introductory paragraph:

"While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12."

That's borderline accusatorial. It's implied that Romney couldn't possibly be against polygamy if his ancestors practiced it. Otherwise, why would this article even be written? It'd be a non-story. It should be a non-story.

Unfortunately, though it should be a non-story, it's not. Some people actually do care. There are voters who think it's relevant that Romney's great-great-grandfather had twelve wives. There are voters who care if a candidate's father is Muslim. There are voters who care that a man Screamed to a ballroom full of supporters. There are voters who care about the color of a candidate's skin.

It's just that, some of those same voters don't care about other things. There are voters who don't care what their President does, as they will follow him blindly and because they're supposed to. There are voters who don't care if they're lied to. There are voters who don't care about dilapidated schools and a broken health care system. There are voters who don't care that a war - A WAR - had a constantly changing pretext.

Now someone wants to tell me that Mitt Romney's great-grandfather had more than one wife? I don't care!