Lately I’ve been trying to locate any kind of organized effort for Mormons for McCain.

I haven’t had much luck.

Using a Google Search of “Mormons for McCain,” all that came up were some older articles that talked about some Mormons who were rooting for McCain when Romney was still in the race. (And now hopefully this post, hehe.) Combining keywords “Mormon” and “McCain” also yields nothing — simply some articles that discuss McCain’s anti-Mormon mother and how McCain had said “I don’t know” if Mormons are Christians. It looks like there are other news articles, though, that claim that he has accepted that Mormons are Christians.

“LDS” and “McCain”? Not much here. TMB actually has the second and third links! (which is pretty sad). The fourth link is to a recent story (June 22) about a McCain campaign worker who, speaking of Romney, claimed Mormons fund Hamas and also criticized how Mormons treat women. (Interestingly, Jon Huntsman, a pre-Romney-drop-out McCain supporter, said in response, “When we have political discussion debates, let’s keep those to the issues that matter most. And keep out of people’s business when it comes to religion. This is a personal aspect to people’s lives and has no place in political discourse.” Hmm, where was this statement when all the hoopla concerning Jeremiah Wright came out?)

“Latter-day Saints” and “McCain”? Nothing special. “Latter-day Saints for McCain”? No results at all.

What about the keywords “BYU” and “McCain”? Nada. “Brigham Young” and “McCain”? Nope. Certainly “Utah” and “McCain”? Sorry. Nothing. (Nothing significant, that is, for each of these.)

Let’s try Facebook. Using all the same search terms as before…

There is one group! Mormons for McCain … a whopping 6 members … and virtually no sign of life … except one “wall” writing from Feb. 21 from a fellow named Chris: “Well, seeing as Giuliani and Romney (our best candidates) are gone, I guess Im stuck with McCain…Huckabee has no chance in winning.”

So, using the same procedure for Obama, here’s what I have found (highlights):

Google (from first two pages only):

• Mormons for Obama group on Obama’s homepage
• Many, many blogs and news articles with the words “Mormons for Obama”
• Utah for Obama group on Obama’s homepage
  
• A MySpace page called “Utah for Obama” with 290 friends (including Barack himself!)
• A page called “Utah for Obama” hosted at www.barackobamaismyhomeboy.com
• June news articles about how Obama is going to have a paid staff in Utah for the general election
• Lots of links about Michelle Obama’s visit to LDS headquarters
• Latter-day Saints for Obama group on Obama’s homepage
• AZ Mormons for Obama group on Obama’s homepage
• BYU Students for Obama group on Obama’s homepage
• Lots of BYU editorials that are negative towards Obama (big surprise)
• An Amazon.com listing for a book about Obama written by a BYU graduate student, Joe Vogel

Facebook groups:

• Mormons for Obama in 2008 (53 members)
• Mormons for Obama (234)
• Mormons for Obama (44)
• Mormons for Barack Obama (38)
• Mormon’s for Obama (6)
• BYU Students for Barack Obama (Official Chapter) (138)
• UVSC Students for OBAMA (13)
• Utah State University for Obama (53)

Now, I realize that Obama is MUCH more popular on the Internet than McCain (at least on an organized level). But, the contrast is still very surprising. Who would have predicted that there would be a fairly remarkable amount of organized LDS support for the Democratic, with virtually none for the Republican?

Moreover, I am assuming that if there are in fact organized groups of Latter-day Saints for McCain, that something about them would come up from a Google search.

So, LDS McCain fans — where are you?

I invite you to join our ongoing, weekly forums regarding the presidential election (Obama fans are invited too, of course).

Perhaps you can even start up a Facebook group. How does “Mormons Stuck With McCain” sound?

Email a friend