Republican hopefuls insist next year’s race for the White House will hinge on the economy, but it is the conservative hot-button issues of race and religion that currently dominate the campaign.
Frontrunner Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, debated at length when the former Massachusetts governor ran for president in 2008, was decried as a “cult” by an evangelical supporter of his main challenger, Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Race relations ensnared Perry after the Washington Post pointed out that his family’s rented hunting lodge had, for many years, the abhorrent name “Niggerhead” emblazoned on a large rock at its entrance.
Social issues are massively important in US elections, especially in the Republican primaries. Americans have always had a Christian president and until US President Barack Obama, they have always been white.
Religion swept to the fore on Friday when a supporter for Perry said Romney’s faith was a non-Christian “cult.”
Perry quickly distanced himself from the remarks, saying he did not see Mormonism — also the faith of longshot candidate Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah — as a cult.
However, he clearly sees Christian backing as crucial, having rallied thousands in prayer in August at a Texas stadium as he sought to burnish his credentials among religious conservatives.
The supporter who made the “cult” comment, Reverend Robert Jeffress, had introduced Perry at a convention of social conservatives as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ.”
The next day Jeffress did not shy away, saying on CNN that “evangelicals have a right to select a competent Christian over a competent non-Christian.”
Several of the main Republican challengers declined to pass judgement on Romney’s faith on Sunday.
US Representative Michele Bachmann called the issue “inconsequential,” but at the same time spoke on CNN of the US’ “religious tolerance” and stressed: “I have a very strong, sincerely held faith.”
More than three of four people in the US identify themselves as Christian.
Evangelicals are a strong force in crucial early-voting states and Romney’s religion still attracts debate, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said.
“This is an issue, he has to address it and then move past it,” Brazile told ABC News.
Even Romney’s deputy campaign manater in 2008, Carl Forti, has said religion could be Romney’s Achilles heel. Forti told a conference in late March that religious prejudice is “not something you can test, it’s not something you can poll. There’s just a bias out there.”
Also ducking the controversy was Herman Cain, a former pizza company executive who has never held elected office, but has surprisingly surged into the top-tier of Republican candidates.
“I’m not running for theologian in chief,” he told CNN on Sunday, declining to assert whether or not Romney is a Christian.
Cain has been outspoken on another of the US’ most contentious issues, race, as he aims to become the second black president in a row and the first black Republican nominee.
“I don’t believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way,” he told CNN.
However, statistics show blacks are suffering disproportionately during the downturn, with their unemployment rate several points higher than the national average and Cain has acknowledged some racism still exists.
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