Welcome to this community supported and farewell edition of the best of the left podcast

with clips today from On the Media, The Sam Cedar Show, NPR, The Young Turks, The Time

is now, and finally with this American life.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has raised $23 million in presidential campaign

funds more than any other Republican.

It was a high profile success for a Mormon politician, and when the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints let its longtime PR firm go recently, many thought they might be hoping

to capitalize on Romney's success.

Good PR, after all, has been a slippery thing for the country's fourth-largest denomination.

The Mormon tabernacle choir in the 2002 Winter Olympics, which first lofted Mitt Romney

to a national stage, are obvious Mormon successes, but waiting until 1978 to desegregate the Church,

not so much.

Richard Osling, co-author of Mormon America, The Power in the Promise, says that in the

face of declining membership, Romney may be ushering in the Mormon's moment.

Richard, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Now, Romney isn't the first prominent Mormon in national politics, right?

I mean, his father ran against Nixon in 1968.

There was Morris Udall, the Democratic Senator from Arizona, who ran against Carter in

76.

There's Orrin Hatch, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

How important a moment is this for the Mormon Church?

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