“For without reservation. I can ‘solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution… so help me God.’” It was nearly 50 years ago when a presidential nominee from Massachusetts uttered those words, at the end of a speech meant to assuage the fears of many people that his religious views would dictate his decisions to the detriment of the country. It would seem that this was largely successful, because, on January 20th, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sworn into one of the most powerful elected positions on the face of the earth. Little surprise, then, that when Willard “Mitt” Romney, another member of a religion with less than implicit public trust, decided that he wanted to run for that very same job, he chose to give a very similar speech. However, Romney would, mere months later, suspend his campaign and remove himself from the race. Why would Romney’s campaign fail where Kennedy’s succeeded? Where, in the text and the timing of his message, did Romney go wrong?

The nature of the so-called “religious question” is much the same today as it was in the Kennedy days. Essentially, when a member of a less-mainstream religion is running for the presidency, voters wonder to what degree his religion will affect his leadership decisions, particularly with regards to how powerful this would make his specific church, politically. With Kennedy, many protestant Americans feared that the executive power would become usurped by the Papacy, and with Romney the fear was that he might use the executive branch to make decisions that would strictly benefit the Mormon church and mindset. This is particularly important with the Romney’s campaign for the Republican nomination, due to the fact that, in recent years, the religious factions of the political right have been a major aspect of the Republican constituency, and these groups are particularly sensitive to issues of this nature. As one heckler at a February question and answer session said, “I want my testimony to read that I voted for a man who stands for the Lord Jesus Christ… and you, sir… you’re a pretender. You do not know the Lord.” (Romney, “Romney Takes On”) Obviously, then, this “religious issue” is a contentious one.

Even though, at first glance, Romney’s speech seems to be a direct parallel to the Kennedy speech, if you dissect the content itself you see that these two presidential hopefuls handled the issue in vastly different ways. Kennedy’s 1960 speech addresses the question of how much intersection there should be between his religious life and his role as the leader of the country, and his answer is concise and consistent. As he puts it, “I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.” At it’s heart, the speech is one that underscores the importance of their being a separation between church and state, even at the highest levels of government, and that, regardless of religious imperative, an acting President must, “devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency.” Romney’s speech, on the other hand, has a much more mixed message to send. Where Kennedy spends a good deal of his time extolling the virtues of the separation of church and state, Romney’s speech spends more time underscoring the virtues of religion, using such language as “We are a nation ‘Under God,’ and in God we do indeed trust,” especially in the political sphere, a tactic that seems to directly counter that of Kennedy. In fact, at one point in the speech he even makes a jab at those who would seek to separate church and state in the style of Kennedy. As Romney says in his speech, “Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of Secularism. They are wrong.” Interesting, then, that in a speech so intended to do parallel the success of the JFK speech, Romney would use the same phrase “private affair” in a context that almost seems to indict Kennedy’s viewpoint. Even worse, there are several mixed messages throughout the speech itself. It seems to make motions toward the separation of church and state, even invoking Kennedy himself, mentioning “another candidate from Massachusetts [who] explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for president,” even when he turns around and finds it important to the exigence of his speech to give an answer to the question “What do I believe about Jesus Christ?” He even goes so far as to quote the bible directly and explain that his “faith is grounded on these truths […] and these convictions will indeed inform my presidency,” which is an odd choice of focus for a man trying to convince his audience that he will “serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest.”

The timing of the Kennedy and Romney speeches were also vastly different, in the scope of the overall campaign. Kennedy didn’t give his speech on the “religious question” until after he had secured the nomination for presidency, while Romney held his speech well before any of the state primaries had even begun. Could this be why the speech was largely ineffective? It would seem that the indefinite nature of the Romney campaign, coupled with the lack of an overwhelming pressure to address the issue, may have meant that the kairotic moment that he was trying to grab by giving this speech simply wasn’t there. In the case of the Kennedy speech the candidates were decided, and the party had the choice to either support him or further divide the party, whereas with Romney there were several other potential candidates that people could support, rather than dealing with a potentially contentious issue, such as the role that Mormonism might play in such a persons candidacy for being President. This, combined with the plainly mixed message that Romney’s speech makes, makes for an overall statement that was confusing and ill timed, with such ideological contradictions as stating that “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom,” in one passage, while talking about radical Islamists as employing “conversion by conquest” and “the coercion of minds,” in the next.

All things considered, the most problematic aspect of Romney’s speech was the fact that there really was no call for it, at the time that he gave it. This, in and of itself, sends a message that’s contrary to the one he was presumably trying to send. A good counter-example was how Senator Obama handled the issue of race in his campaign. In order to win the nomination, Obama had to be able to enlist supporters from all races, just as Romney needed to express that he would be a President with more interests at heart than that of the Mormon church. In order to do this, Obama avoided, at all costs, talking significantly about race, so that no-one could claim that he was using his race as a political tool, and it was only when the controversy over the statements of his former paster surfaced when he made a decisive and thought-out statement. It was this pressure to speak on the topic which underscored the point that he was not trying to use his race to his political advantage, and was trying to represent all people, not just people who are grouped into the same demographic as him. This was the same sort of pressure that, in 1960, the “religious issue” was placing on Kennedy, and it was also the same pressure that was was suspiciously lacking when Romney gave his own speech on religion. The problem, in the political climate, is that when a candidate attempts to manufacture a kairotic moment from a potentially, but not currently, contentious issue, it is usually viewed as being purely a political machination, and thus garners much less interest in the public sphere. It can even be seen as being a temperamental ploy to get attention.

In the end, Romney’s campaign was brought to a hasty close by the former governor. It’s impossible to say exactly what caused him to withdraw his bid for Presidential candidacy, but it would be a fair assessment to say that his speech on religion with its terribly timed attempts at manufacturing kairos certainly didn’t encourage particularly savvy party members to feel confident in the viability of his campaign. While it is unlikely that this speech and this speech alone was the cause of the failure of his campaign and it’s precipitous withdrawal, it is certain that it is this sort of overtly forced rhetoric and lack of political planning that usually precludes people from winning such a high-profile position as President.

Kennedy, John F. Religion Speech. Greater Houston Ministerial Association . 12 Sept. 1960. 9 May 2008 .

Romney, Willard “Mitt”. Religion Speech. George Bush Presidential Library, College Station, TX. 6 Dec. 2007. 9 May 2008 .

- - -. Romney Takes on Religion Heckler. 2007. 9 May 2008 .