All Your Tithings Are Belong To Us

Great number-crunching on the Mitt Romney campaign by Chris Borowski:

In 2006, Utah residents gave more than $1.3 million in donations of $1,000 or more to Romney's fundraising organizations, or Political Action Committees (PACs), according to a Medill News Service analysis of state and federal filings.

That amount is about 17 times the amount raised in Utah by Sen. John McCain, the candidate who received the second-highest total, $74,000, in large donations from Utah. Only Massachusetts, where Romney was governor, and California exceeded Utah in funds contributed, with $1.9 million and $1.6 million respectively raised by Romney's PAC.

However, Utah, where 70 percent of the population are Mormon, far outdistanced all other states on a per capita basis. Romney collected 51 cents in Utah per citizen, compared to 30 cents in Massachusetts and four cents in California.

I just read Hugh Hewitt's Mitt Romney bio A Mormon in the White House?, which spends a lot of time hashing out an incoherent argument about Romney's faith. On the one hand, Hewitt argues, it's unAmerican to question Romney's judgment for being a member of the Mormon church, and it's impolite to ask him too many questions about it. On the other hand, Hewitt predicts Romney will have great success because Mormons will donate so much time and money to him… because, uh, of his faith.