The Mormon image in the American mind: Shaping public perception of Latter-day Saints, 1968--2008

As unlikely as it would have seemed a century earlier, a Mormon---George Romney---was a leading contender for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. Forty years later, and by one of those coincidences of history that cannot help but prompt comparisons, George Romney's son Mitt threw his hat into the ring of presidential politics. Despite these father-son parallels, during Mitt Romney's campaign it quickly became apparent that being a Mormon in the public eye meant something far different in 2008 than it did in 1968. This study seeks to understand what had changed, and why.;Why, for example, was attention to George Romney's Mormon faith relatively muted when compared to the recent media coverage of Mitt Romney? Why were the theology of the Latter-day Saints and their status as "Christians" mostly nonissues in 1968, but such hotly-contested matters in 2008? What do these shifts in public perception say about changes in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its membership, and the various segments of American society with which Mormons interact?;These two seasons of intense publicity for the father and son candidates---and, more importantly, for their church---become the opening and closing benchmarks in a study that seeks to measure and interpret changes in public perception of Latter-day Saints by focusing on a series of similar news-making "Mormon moments" in the four decades between the Romney campaigns. These moments lend themselves to interrogation regarding not only the evolution of Mormonism's public image, but also the public dialogue, with all of its various interlocutors, that has produced and continues to produce that image.;While Mormons have undoubtedly made gains in terms of name recognition, their increased visibility has accentuated a perception paradox. A survey of the past forty years reveals a growing tension inherent in the public's views of this body of religious people and the public's views of the religion that inspires that body. This disconnect between admiration for Mormons as individuals---often described as friendly, hard-working, family-oriented---and ambivalence for Mormonism as an institution---secretive, authoritarian, deceptive---is a gap that represents perhaps the most dominant trend in the recent history of the LDS image.