Alexander Ryking

The religious dynamic of the Romneys’ Leave It To Beaver lifestyle has been largely lost on the partisans making hay out of the latest flare-up in the mommy wars, which was sparked by a Democratic strategist charging that Ann “has never actually worked a day in her life.” But while much of the debate has centered on class — with liberals casting full-time motherhood as a luxury for the rich, and conservatives hoping working-class women will identify with her — the fact is that even if Mitt were a middle-class schoolteacher, there’s a good chance Ann still would have foregone a career.

That’s because for many Latter-day Saint women, staying at home to raise children is less a lifestyle choice than religious one…

These doctrinally-defined gender roles aren’t entirely unique — they’ve been preached by various sects for centuries — but Mormons have proven uniquely unwilling to bend them to fit modern times. The Church took heat in the ’70s for waging a high-profile campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment; and even today, Mormon women remain twice as likely to be homemakers as non-Mormons, regardless of income levels.

Arizona might have less symbolic importance than Michigan, but it is probably of more practical significance. That is because it’s one of the few Republican states to award its delegates on a truly winner-take-all basis, without any qualifications or complication. Get one more vote than your rivals in Arizona, and you take all 29 of its delegates.

The most tangible advantage in Arizona belongs to Mitt Romney, and it is because the state has a reasonably high Mormon population. In the 2008 primary there, Mormon voters constituted 11 percent of the electorate — and Mr. Romney won 88 percent of their votes, versus 8 percent for John McCain.

If Mr. Romney posts similar numbers among Mormon voters this year in Tuesday’s primary — and there’s no reason to think that he won’t — that works out a nine-point built-in advantage in the state.

It’s every reporter’s dream to ask a presidential candidate a question that packs multidimensional dynamite. Univision’s Jorge Ramos had that opportunity yesterday when he asked Mitt Romney if he considered his own self a “Mexican-American,” since his father, George Romney, was born in that country.

Romney sheepishly allowed as how he didn’t think that sort of self-identification would be terribly credible. But it was a tricky question nonetheless, not only because Romney is frantically prospecting for Hispanic voters in Florida right now, but also because it served as a reminder that Mitt’s great-grandparents were polygamists who fled to Mexico (reportedly at the instruction of none other than Brigham Young) shortly before the LDS church officially renounced plural marriage, and the new state of Utah banned it altogether…

Polygamy aside, Ramos’ question was probably as welcome to the candidate as a basket of vipers.