Not vote for him because of his wacky religion, in which Joseph Smith translated the magic stones in his hat using a rosetta stone that only he could see, which told him that the Garden of Eden is in Kansas City, Mo.

But every "wacky religion" (Christianity included) sounds less wacky with 1,000 plus years and a larger following. Heck, even Scientology might sound good in a couple thousand years...

But I doubt it.

FYI, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints consider themselves Christians:

http://www.mormon.org/question/faq/category/0,8791,798-1-16,00.html

So religious bigotry is ok? Btw, I'm one of those wacky Joseph Smith Mormons and I've been a Democrat all my life. You want my vote or not?

Next - the reason not to vote for Romeny, and the angle to pull more than his flipflop on social stance is his incompetence . Remember the Big Dig project that collapsed in Boston last summer crushing people to death under tons of concrete? Remember it being about 1500% overbudget.

Yep, that's Romney's baby. If he could do that for Boston, imagine what he can do with a whole country.

If he can't manage that

I love Broadsheet, but you're a little late picking up on this. Slate's Andy Bowers covered Romney's flip-flop (and more damning-- or just funny-- Election '08 video) three weeks ago: http://www.slate.com/id/2158860/nav/tap1/

Was anything that I wrote inaccurate? Except for the editorial portion, which called it Wacky?

From my point of view as an atheist, all religions are whacky, and, yes, the Joseph Smith thing with the golden tablets is weird, but so is the idea of some guy walking on water and rising from the dead and another guy having stone tablets etched by god on the top of a mountain. Most religions have this stuff - one is not particularly more whacky than another.

Another thing about being an atheist in the U.S. is that I have to vote for someone of some religion or I can't vote. There aren't going to be any atheist candidates for serious office anytime soon. So, I ignore the religion per se and focus on the issues which might or might not be related to religion. Hold Romney and all the others to the same test.

The first love of Mormons is money. A bishop or stake president who owns a business will get all the local Mormons to buy from him. They also don't believe in the rule of law, at least for Mormons. They do all they can to cover up white collar and sex crimes, and take care of them "in the church". Individually they are OK, but as a group they are scary. As the old joke goes, never take only one Mormon fishing with you, he'll drink all your beer. All Mormon boys must become Eagle Scouts. That's pretty scary, too. Picture Romney as an Eagle Scout. Since all male Mormons are fluent in at least one foreign language, they are major factors in the CIA and the State Department. How many non-Mormons can speak Kyrgyzstan? Since we live in an area that is more Mormon than Salt Lake, we are sort of a persecuted minority, but not too persecuted. The area is full of divorced Mormon women in their late 20's, some of them quite attractive. But they have five or so kids, so it's pretty rough on them. They are pretty much like any other religion, corrupt and venal, so I would have no problem voting for Romney. Roe should be overturned, those who live in fundamentalist states can vote with their feet. If it is overturned the "conservative" politicians will have to find another issue to get the redneck vote. After all Rednecks should be natural Democrats. At least the poor ones.

how so many of these right wing politicians, all of whom claim to be Christian, will say anything to get elected. Don't they remember the saying "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his immortal soul?" I think that comes from some book that they like to pretend that they read.

You are wrong. He used magic stones to read gold tablets. I think there was something about a pair of magical spectacles too. C'mon!

There are LOTS of reasons to not vote for the former governor of MA (my fair state.) His mormonism doesn't even make the list.

I hate to say it, but I believe his current positions on abortion and gay marriage are the ones he has held all along. When he ran for office in MA, he changed up his postiions. It didn't work the first time against Ted Kennedy, but it did finally work after he bounced into town after the Olympics. The Massachusetts eletorate fell for his lies and elected him governor. He did a terrible job (especially by Republican governor standards (Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, etc.)and now he has changed his stripes and is running for president. Once he made that decision, he proceeded to go around the country and insulted MA (the state he was ostensably governing at the time.)

We need not get into the loss of jobs, corporate head quarters, loss of population, but it all added up to approval rates so low they rivaled president Bush's numbers. In fact, his low numberS and support sunk the campaign of his lt. governor, Kerry Healy, who promptly turned right and lost in a landslide to Deval Patrick.

DON'T BE FOOLED AMERICA. MITT ROMNEY WILL SAY ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED. I AM NOT SURE HE ACTUALLY BELIEVES IN ANYTHING.

I was a Massachusetts resident for many years, and I've been watching Mitt Romney's political career for even longer. So I couldn't be more positive when I say this:

Mitt Romney would do anything for a shot at the Presidency. Flip-flopping is just the start. He'd kill, or pimp his own mother to improve his chances. Remember Martin Sheen as the bad President in The Dead Zone? That's Romney. He'd gladly kill a baby to gain a few votes, if that would do it.

There is no stand he wouldn't change, NOTHING he wouldn't do. Sell out the US to the Chinese government? In a heartbeat, if he really believed it would secure the Presidency for him.

I know this all sounds crazy, but if Romney wins I'll be pointing to this post within three years and saying "I TOLD you so!".

And as someone else mentioned - he's completely incompetent. His major political assets are his looks, his connections to the LDS church, and his absolutely lack of any principles whatsoever. His administration in Massachusetts was as incompetent as the Bush Administration - I'd say more so, but that's not possible.

The collapse of the Big Dig happened on his watch. The MA economy is NOT doing well - major businesses are fleeing like mad. His much-touted universal health plan is an unimplementable joke, foisting punitive fines on those too poor to pay for health care. Virtually every government service went down the toilet under Romney.

The "Efficient Republican Businessman" Romney rep is perhaps the biggest joke of all.

I wrote an email to him about dangerous, life-threatening conditions on the commuter rail (some lines are routinely given too few coaches, and typically have twenty or more people standing in the aisles in each coach - a definite hazard if there were to be an accident, as has happened fairly often). How long did it take Mr. Efficiency's office to respond?

Five months.

Five months to respond with a kiss-off form email. And of course, nothing has been done.

It horrifies me that people are taking this man seriously as a candidate. And it dismays me that I have to place my hopes in the religious bigotry of the southern Religious Right.