In tiny Nauvoo, no big push for Romney

NAUVOO, Ill. — Mitt Romney's campaign for president hasn't exactly caught fire in the little river town that many Mormons consider a touchstone for their religion.

The "Mitt Rocks" T-shirts are selling pretty well at the Art Needlework Shop, but they can't compete with the "I Like Mormon Boys" shirts. Romney yard signs are practically nonexistent. Neighbors are chatting about sports and hunting, not Republican politics.

Durell Nelson is pleased to have a fellow Mormon running for president, but he hasn't decided whether to vote for Romney and he didn't attend when Romney held a rally just across the river in Iowa.

Nelson said some of his neighbors, like voters across the country, have doubts about Romney.

"I think the biggest fear among people I know is that church leadership would have a heavy sway in his life," said Nelson, 57, a landscape architect at Mormon historic sites. "That's a misconception."

It's one Romney will tackle head-on on Thursday. Losing ground as Iowa's leadoff caucuses approach, he plans a speech in Texas in which he'll discuss religion and how his faith would or wouldn't influence his presidency.

Nauvoo — it's pronounced nah-VOO — sits on the Mississippi River just across from the southeast corner of Iowa. A five-story white limestone building topped with a golden statue dominates the town — a Mormon temple matching the one that church leaders built here more than 160 years ago.

The town has fewer than 1,100 permanent residents, about one-third of whom are Mormon. But tens of thousands of Mormons visit Nauvoo each year to see the temple and the spot a few miles away where church founder Joseph Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob.

That was in 1844. Violent clashes continued, and in early 1846 thousands of Mormons fled Nauvoo and began the trip to Salt Lake City, where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now based.

Residents say some ill will remains today, magnified by the normal friction in a small town dealing with waves of tourists. There's even a Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center dedicated to telling people that Mormons are not true Christians and are controlled almost totally by church officials.

"There's some feelings against the Mormons here," acknowledged Lee Ourth, a member of the City Council. "Some say, 'We ran them out once, we can do it again.'"

"Now, that's not from our brightest residents," he added quickly.

Nauvoo residents say the Republican presidential primaries haven't generated much interest here. Romney and his competitors aren't on people's minds even though neighboring Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses are less than a month away.