If somebody said they would not vote for a candidate because they are Rotarian, Californian, Jewish or shop at Target, there would be many more champions in the media arising and denouncing such bigoted behavior.  Some open prejudices are still sanctioned in public such as belittling fat people and Mormons.  It would be nice if this baser aspect of human nature was kept in check, but the public needs to be more sensitized about these type of occurrences.  Even then such prejudices exist with more subtle nuances couched in terms like "states rights" and "hating the sin but loving the sinner".  Best if we could stop them head on.  Perhaps tranquilizer darts may help.

I didn't vote for Romney in the Florida Primary.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I couldn't bring myself to vote for Gingrich, either, but when my wife came back and said that Huntsman had been left on the ballot, I did what she did and voted for a dead man.  It had no effect on the outcome, but then again, I doubt that two more votes for Romney would have done much, either.  Romney won by a landslide.  

Me and the Misses cast our votes for the principle that the best Republican is a centrist moderate.  Given the sturm und drang of the Tea Party madness that seemed to seize the party (rising up against "Obamacare" and shoring up the midterm elections before fizzling, on schedule, before it could destroy the GOP on election day), Romney's ascendency against a crowded field of me-too wingnuts is a breath of "fresher" air.

For me, the question was never Romney's faith but rather his voting record - for and against abortion, for and against gay rights, for and against stem-cell research - as well as his public statements, including his comments on immigration.  Romney didn't do it for me.  I'd have preferred Huntsman, if Huntsman could have figured out how to run a political campaign.  He never did, which is why he's little more than roadkill on the highway out of town.

But that said - all of that said - you have to hand it to Romney for taking all those hits about his religion and surviving them.  There's a lesson here, one a little broader than the question of which Republican or which Mormon to vote for in the presidential race.  Romney endured a lot of dismissals only to leave his detractors wondering how he did it.  The last time somebody did that, he won the White House.  I can still see Rudy Giuliani laughing at Obama's experience as a "community organizer."  Obama ended up having the biggest laugh, while Giuliani ended up discovering that you can only surf 9/11 so long and so far.

Romney took on all of those hateful epithets about Mormons and defanged them.  He didn't really discuss religion.  He just kept on keeping on.  He could have written those famous words, "We heeded them not."

Whether you agree with Romney's politics or not, Romney's candidacy is a good thing for Mormons.  It's a lightning rod, draining the kneejerk anti-Mormon dismissal of Mormons.  Even if he loses to Obama (a fate I would vastly prefer), there's no going back to the old days when Mormons were those weirdoes living out West, people who could be dismissed as less American.  When the Republican Party nominates Romney, Romney will have gone further than any Mormon before him.

That's obviously worth something.

Mormons deserve respect, a lot more than they get.  Every ward has its token nutball but the kinds of mean things that have been said publicly, by civilized people, are indefensible.

You're right - on both accounts.  We need the national dialogue and the drive-by trolls are basically bigots with a target even the PC police have left high and dry.