Politics’ Strangest Bedfellows

The ‘Way Back Machine School of Thinking’ is becoming a prominent tool in election campaigns; and the Internet the latter day ‘Penny Dreadful’ of the global reading world. With Mormonism up front and out there in the person of GOP-pushed presidential candidate Mitt Romney; with the outing of tag team Mitt Romney and Ron Paul coming to the surface; with Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul saying he would be honoured should Romney tap him for vice president, the “news” of the day leads you all the way back to eight-year-old Marco Rubio.

Political blog buzzfeed.com wants you to know that Marco was something other than just a cute, little dark-eyed boy when he was eight. When his family lived in Nevada, this little turncoat already had a history with the Mormon church. As a little gaffer, Rubio most likely already had a relationship with tadpoles too, but that doesn’t fit the Brutus template. Rubio family members (God only knows why) owned up to Buzzfeed that Rubio was baptized in the Mormon Church at about the ripe old age of 8, along with some of his family members.

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Though they are sometimes loathe to admit it, proselytizing goes on in most religions, and when Rubio was attending grade school, he and his family lived in the Mormon stronghold of Nevada. Rubio and the Marco clan were, up until the faith swicheroo, Catholics. After a few years, the family returned to Catholicism and Rubio received his First Communion at age 12. Converts sometimes find themselves going back to the church they attended before their conversion. Tolerance being a cornerstone of all religions but one, no one tars and feathers converts returning to their original places of worship. In a fast-changing world, converts are commonplace. At least famous Mormon convert Glenn Beck was 35 when he joined the Church of Latter Day Saints. Now it seems that what he did when he was 8 may interfere with Rubio’s political future.

“The revelation adds a new dimension to Rubio’s already-nuanced religious history--and could complicate his political future at a time when many Republicans see him as the odds-on favorite for the 2012 vice presidential nod. Vice presidential candidates are traditionally chosen to provide ethnic and religious balance to a ticket. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and Rubio’s Catholic faith would already mean the first two members of minority traditions on a Republican ticket in American history. Rubio’s Mormon roots could further complicate that calculation.” (Buzzfeed, Feb.23, 2012)

Amid the internecine fighting of the Republican presidential candidates, Obama seems to be somersaulting past them on his way his way to re-election. Meanwhile, it seems that Mitt prefers Rand Paul over Marco Rubio. Rubio’s roots in Mormonism were likely no more real at age 8 than the bottle blonde roots of the Auntie Ruthie who led the family to LDS church services. Despite popularity polls Rubio has said he is not interested in being anybody’s vice president. Rand Paul has said he would be honoured to be Romney’s. But to some, Libertarian Ron Paul’s joining up on a tag team with Mormon Mitt Romney is a conversion that pales to Rubio’s Mormon “roots”. Just as politics makes strange, if not freakish bedfellows, long ago conversions of little boys are more important than Libertarianism jumping between the sheets with Mormonism. Meanwhile, if the Way Back Machine School of Thinking prevails in election campaigns, it will be someday be held against babies for allowing themselves to be baptized.