For his part, Keller insists that Romney won’t be able to use The Bluest State as a campaign prop. “Lately, I’ve been hearing [Romney] talk about how he was able to work with this overwhelmingly Democratic establishment to get things done — i.e., the new Massachusetts health-care plan,” he tells the Phoenix. “If that’s going to be his spin, my reporting undercuts that: I’m saying, ‘No, he didn’t work together with anyone; basically, there was a confluence of self-interest.’ ”

“My main interest in Romney is as a way of illustrating dysfunction in the political culture here,” adds Keller. “Perhaps he comes off better than he might in some other context. But if he thinks he’s going to use my book as a selling point for himself nationally, I don’t think that’s going to go very far if people actually read it.”

Time will tell. For now, a prediction: if The Bluest State gets anything close to the reception What’s the Matter with Kansas? had a few years back, Romney stands to benefit quite a bit — unless the author himself takes pains to round out the Romney record.

Eclipsing the rising son
Next up: September Dawn, a luxuriantly violent historical drama based on the September 11, 1857, Mountain Meadows massacre, in which some 120 non-Mormon settlers crossing Utah Territory were killed by Mormon militiamen and their local Indian allies. The brunt of the killings took place after a group of Mormons promised to escort the settlers (whom they’d just disarmed) to safety. Instead — shades of Srebrenica — the escorts slaughtered their wards en masse, sparing only a few young children whom they subsequently raised.

Everyone agrees that the Mountain Meadows bloodbath occurred: an article in the September 2007 issue of Ensign, a magazine published by the LDS Church, calls it a “horrific crime” that has “burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt.” What is debated is whether it took place with the tacit or explicit approval of Brigham Young, then the president of the LDS Church and the governor of the Utah Territory.

But why should any of this matter to Mitt? Because Mormonism is far less familiar to the national electorate than other major faiths, and because, fair or not, Candidate Romney will be a de facto spokesperson for his church. (His assiduous courtship of Christian conservatives, who tend to be especially distrustful of Mormons, makes Romney’s situation particularly tricky.)

According to the film’s director, Christopher Cain (Dean’s dad), September Dawn is a case study in the perils of violent zealotry. “It’s really not about Mormons or about Muslims,” Cain tells the Phoenix. “It’s about religious fanaticism, wherever it’s born.” The film certainly makes the consequences of fanaticism clear. The carnage, when it comes, is a startlingly gory affair filled with slow-motion shots: a bullet exploding in flesh, a hatchet buried in a victim’s back, a perpetrator drunk with bloodlust, a strand of saliva dangling from his mouth.

Unfortunately, the caricatured set-up makes the killings seem inevitable: the Mormons as a group are straight out of a horror movie, while the settlers are a preposterously wholesome, enlightened bunch. In reality, things were a bit more complicated. The Mormon flight to Utah, for example, followed the 1844 murder of their prophet and LDS Church founder Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois. And a large contingent of US troops was heading toward Utah around the time the settlers arrived — intending, some Mormons feared, to exterminate the LDS Church once and for all.

If this history had been fleshed out a bit more, Cain might have produced a worthwhile meditation on how normal people come to do abnormal, horrific things. Instead, September Dawn gives us a simple conflict between Good and Evil — which, if you’re seeking to understand how fanaticism operates, isn’t much of a conflict at all.

And what of Romney? Earlier this year, conservative columnist Robert Novak urged Romney to weigh in on September Dawn and the Mountain Meadows massacre. Romney “surely is not responsible for Brigham Young,” Novak said (great point, Bob!), but “questions about what kind of man Young was hurt his campaign.” Then, earlier this month, conservative commentator Michael Medved panned September Dawn, ruefully predicting that it would “powerfully reinforc[e]” existing anti-Mormon bias.

Allow me to propose another possibility: September Dawn is exactly the hook Romney needs to give that big speech on the Mormon Question that he keeps talking about. It’s a softball, really — a chance to condemn religious violence while simultaneously condemning pernicious representations of Mormons themselves. If Romney’s speechwriters aren’t working on this already, they should be.

Second-time charms
Item Three on Romney’s media radar is A Mormon President, a documentary produced and directed by filmmaker Adam Christing. The film focuses on Smith, whose own 1844 presidential run ended when he was murdered by enemies of the church he had started. Early PR suggests a pro-Romney, pro-Mormon apologia: the press release I received cites Romney’s presidential bid and promises that A Mormon President “will shed light on the deep undercurrent of anti-Mormon feeling in some parts of the country.”

But this reading may be too simplistic. On the one hand, Christing — who grew up in the Reorganized LDS Church (which is separate from the LDS Church) and now worships with nondenominational Protestants — is clearly impressed by Smith, whom he calls a “charismatic genius.” On the other, he seems intent on treating Smith’s story with plenty of critical detachment.

“A few years ago, there was a lot of heat around the whole idea of the search for the historical Jesus,” Christing tells the Phoenix. “What we’re exploring here is the search for the historical Joseph. Who was this guy? Was he a prophet, a fraud, a polygamist, a politician? We’re really interested in getting at the root of this, because, without Joseph Smith, there’s no Mormonism.”

The film is still being edited, and no trailer was available as of press time, so it’s impossible to say how Christing’s vision will play out on screen. The distribution arrangement for A Mormon President is also unclear; according to Christing, he’s working on both theatrical and broadcast versions, but nothing’s been hammered out yet. Stay tuned — Romney certainly will.

On the Web
Adam Reilly's Media Log: //www.thephoenix.com/medialog