Does the Mormon Card Play Either Way?

Romney came out criticizing other Republican candidates and people in general for the criticism of that Romney directed at him not because of his personal accomplishments, but instead due to his religion.  That Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints sometimes referred to as Mormons.

The Christian right in the Republican Party is having a difficult time with Matt Romney, the current front runner for the Republican primary.  The Christian right is shown its fundamentalist roots for many years now in those routes include intolerance for many other faiths.

The problem is that there are two things going on here. 

1. George Bush has done more to hurt the political goals of the Christian right than any other president as he's attempted to pursue those goals.  His inability to get things done without botching the job has hurt the people that elected him to get the job done.
2. The Republicans desperately want to win the presidential seat in 2008, and Romney is in the lead to win the primaries if it were to be held today.  Unfortunately, the Christian right seems to be somewhat split over the concepts of whether or not a Mormon is really a Christian.

The Christian right is essentially put themselves into a paradox of their own making.  They elected a man who claimed to be a good Christian, but it was extremely ineffectual.  Now they need a person I can get things done but that person doesn't fall into the perfect cookie-cutter mold of what the majority of the Christian right view as a good Christian.

Ultimately if they can figure out what it is they truly want and whether or not they can tolerate it, the Democrats will blindside them and odds are they will not get a good Christian and the White House.

As a firm believer in the wide separation of church and state, I find the situation rather amusing from the perspective that the Christian right has painted themselves into a corner.  Their unchristian like behavior and intolerance looks like it might just be their undoing politically, with the help of coarse of George Bush.

So now as Mitt Romney plays the Mormon card and accuses his own base of religious intolerance, and as that base price fell about a Mormon attempting to lead them, it would seem playing the Mormon card has voided out both of their positions.

That might just mean that the tiebreaker will go to the Democrats or even an independent candidate.