Mahons had warned me that Romney's Mormonism would be a big problem with people who might otherwise support his candidacy. I was skeptical, but after last night's results I can't deny it any longer. Each of the states colored in for Huckabee should have gone to Romney, would have gone to Romney if he'd been a Baptist or Methodist or etc or yes, a Catholic. You can probably throw in Missouri and Oklahoma too.
There's still a part of me that figures that Romney's phoniness was the main problem, but I'm pretty much convinced that it was really the Mormonism that finished Romney. I read/heard many comments from regular voters about not wanting to promote a 'cult', which is what they believe they would have been doing if they voted for Romney.
It seems clear to me that for Catholic conservatives the Mormonism was much less of a problem, but down south and across the midwest the anti-Mormon perspective is the key to Romney's failure (not that he was that good a candidate, but still none of them is).
