Watching Mitt Romney on 60 Minutes last night gave me something of a chill. In a field of Repu candidates populated chiefly by mummies, lizards and patent-medicine peddlers, this man seems eminently electable. The thought of which just makes me want to scream.

The Mormon thing doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Anyone who regards the Mormon Church as some sort of wacky cult hasn’t stopped to think too carefully about the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Bread turning into God’s flesh? And we let these people into high office? Basically my philosophy on the subject comes down to this: the majority of Americans still believe in one or another of these fairy tales, and they seem to manage to get through their day without sacrificing their firstborn to Graag or burning down a neighbor’s house because they think he caused an eclipse. Not only that, but many of them are nice people to boot. Mormon, Catholic, Wiccan–so long as they are centered enough to render unto Caesar when appropriate, what they do behind closed church doors is none of my concern.

No, the thing that really scroggs my noggin about Romney is the fact that he seems to have taken the mantle of True Conservative only recently, in a patent attempt to make his politics as palatable to the voting public as his silvering-at-the-temples hairdo. This is the only place where Romney’s religion comes into it, in my view. Mormons believe that they have a continuous and enduring communication with God, primarily, IIRC, through the Holy Ghost. Presumably then, as a devout Mormon, Romney came by his decisions regarding abortion, taxes, the morning after pill, gays in the Boy Scouts, etc., via or during these conversations. He’s already gone 180 degrees on two of these, and odds are good that there are more flip-flops in his future. Which begs the question: did Mitt mishear the Almighty the first time, or did God change His mind somewhere down the line?

Are conservative Christian voters so incredibly desperate to get someone who at least pretends to think like them that they will back a candidate whose most deeply held beliefs only started to come in line with theirs in the last election cycle or so?

Whoops, sorry, that’s right; they already did, didn’t they? GW’s Christian patina is a thin–and as transparent–as they come. Shit, Romney may be even more electable than I had previously worried. Oh well; at least this pious hypocrite doesn’t get that stunned-bunny look when a reporter asks him a question about foreign policy. Or long division.