Will Wilkinson | Iowa City | The Economist

...Mr Romney's mere survival, despite the "mega-church populist orthodoxy" of today's Republican Party, is remarkable in itself and deserves greater recognition. And there's a great deal of merit to Mr Kirn's insight that Mr Romney has to be careful not to appear motivated by anything other than the most hazily generic religious conviction. Mr Santorum obviously does not hesitate to argue for his favoured policies on narrowly sectarian grounds. In contrast, America's present wariness of Mormonism, which is indeed analogous to mid-century wariness of Catholicism, requires that Mr Romney argue his case on grounds acceptable to a relatively wide range of right-leaning types. Because Mr Romney cannot deploy straight-up Christian rhetoric without drawing unwanted attention to his faith, he compensates with a combination of twee sentimentality about family and a forced, almost hysterical American exceptionalism, both of which I think contribute to the widespread perception of Mr Romney's phoniness. Mr Kirn brings to our attention the possibility that it is a mistake to think that Mr Romney has struggled because of his perceived inauthenticity. Rather, Mr Romney has survived despite his Mormonism for many of the same reasons he seems a bit fake. A fully authentic Mitt Romney would be a frankly Mormon Mitt Romney, and that guy wouldn't stand a chance in a Republican primary.