LDS in politics an uphill battle for 164 years

• Bo Gritz, 1992. The former Green Beret colonel, who at the time was a recent Mormon convert living in Nevada, was the Populist Party's nominee. As a third-party candidate, he never had a serious chance of winning. But he managed, apparently, to gain more votes in a general election than any other Mormon ever had, with the help of fellow church members.

He gained national attention by helping negotiate an end to an 11-day standoff in northern Idaho between federal agents and white separatist Randy Weaver. He called for opposing "The New World Order," ending all foreign aid, abolishing the income tax and ending the Federal Reserve System. He said the country's laws "should reflect unashamed acceptance of Almighty God and his Laws."

He found some support in areas with high numbers of fellow Mormons. For example, 10,000 of what press reports described as "enthusiastic supporters" gathered to listen to him at the Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus.

Gritz received about 100,000 votes nationally in the general election, about 1 percent of the vote. But in heavily LDS Utah, he received 3.8 percent of the vote and in Idaho 2.1 percent.

Two years later, Gritz announced that he had asked the LDS Church to remove his name from its membership rolls. He said that came after his stake president refused to renew his temple recommend because Gritz did not plan to file an income tax return.

• Orrin Hatch, 2000. The U.S. senator from Utah was never considered a top contender by the press because he entered the race so late that almost all financial support and endorsements already had been snagged by other candidates.

Still, the question of whether a Mormon could even compete arose. Hatch confronted it by giving his own "JFK-style" speech to a meeting of the Christian Coalition in Washington, D.C.

That group had stood for most other GOP candidates who addressed it that day, but initially gave Hatch a cool reception with light applause as only half the audience stood to greet him. Hatch addressed how polls said 17 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon for president.

Hatch said, "I thought we got rid of that kind (of thinking) when John F. Kennedy ran for president of the United States as a Catholic," which brought some gasps and scattered applause.

"If the Savior himself came down here right now ... he would miss 17 percent of the vote himself," he said. He then essentially shared his belief in Christ, saying, "I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that he lives. I know that he died for you and me. ... God bless America, and God bless all of you."

He then received an enthusiastic ovation from the crowd, and many of its members praised him to the press. But it did not help Hatch's moribund candidacy.

He finished dead last in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses and dropped out.

He delayed that announcement a day because a big snowstorm closed the Capitol in Washington. He joked at the time, "I said to Elaine (his wife), 'Maybe I shouldn't resign because this snowstorm is a sign from God.' And Elaine responded, 'No, Orrin. The Iowa caucuses were a sign from God."'

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