A Mormon as President?

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That task is never done. Even though the church has not allowed members to have multiple wives since 1890, that's not how it comes across on TV, in books or even in the courts. The popular HBO series Big Love shows a Utah family trying to "live the principle" of plural marriage; at the end of every episode, the network's defensive disclaimer informs the audience that the Mormon church, in fact, rejects polygamy. Similarly, the nonfiction best seller Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer chronicles shocking murders within a Mormon splinter group, though it was probably lost on many readers that the sect has no connection to the church. More recently, the 50-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a sect that has been disavowed by the LDS, has been on trial on two first-degree felony counts of rape. He is accused of helping arrange the marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin in 2001.

Even if the church succeeds in its public relations offensive, Romney still has some explaining of his own to do, particularly to the Republican evangelical base, which now makes up nearly a third of the party's electorate and can wield huge power in primary states, most notably South Carolina. That's because some Evangelicals hold the view that Mormonism is not a Christian faith. Because Mormons acknowledge works of Scripture that are not in the Bible, believe that their prophets have received revelations directly from God and teach that God has a physical body, Evangelicals consider them heretics. The Southern Baptist Convention lists the LDS church under Cults and Sects, along with Scientology. In late October, Romney and his wife Ann, balancing lunch trays on their laps in the den of their Belmont, Mass., home, met with about 15 evangelical leaders from as far away as Alaska, including Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham and Southern Baptist leader Richard Land. The three-hour meeting was set up by Mark DeMoss, a p.r. consultant who specializes in Evangelicals. Charles Colson, the former Nixon official and convicted Watergate conspirator who founded a prison ministry and now hosts a popular evangelical radio show, told TIME that Romney's faith should not disqualify him. "You wouldn't vote for a man just because he is a Christian, nor would you vote against a man just because he was a Mormon," Colson says.

Still, when it comes to managing the message about Romney's relationship with his church, his team has already shown vulnerability. The Boston Globe reported in October that Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the church's 12 apostles, had discussed the campaign at church headquarters with one of Romney's sons as well as with a key Romney donor and a paid consultant to his political action committee. The church says it was just a courtesy call, one of many such meetings Holland holds. But the Globe also described e-mails from two administrators of the business school at Brigham Young University, the Mormon school that is Romney's alma mater, who used office computers to solicit support for the campaign. The two were told by B.Y.U.'s counsel to knock it off, although Romney later said it made sense to raise money from people he knows, including alumni.