Divided Loyalties? Mitt Romney: The First Mormon President? In many ways, Mitt Romney is a dream candidate for Mormons: he is handsome, bright, charismatic, and articulate. He has been a successful businessman and politician as well as Church leader. He has a quintessential Mormon pedigree, polygamous ancestors; distinguished genealogy; son of a prominent political, business, and Church leader; ideal family man. In many ways, he seems like a general authority. And yet, a number of Mormons are disquieted by what they see as Romney’s reshaping himself from a moderate to a far right conservative, one more at home with the extreme edge of the Republican Party and Fundamentalist Christian Coalition than with the American Mainstream. How do Mormons with ambiguous or even negative feelings about Romney deal with their loyalty to the Church and the prospect of having a fellow Mormon in the White House? How do Romney supporters justify his seeming political shape-shifting? What would a Romney presidency look like, and what would it mean for the Church?

ROBERT A. REES, JOHN HATCH, NEWELL BRINGHURST, GLENN CORNETT, and KRYS CORBETT