Presidential elections can be learning moments or lead to moments in which the electorate can transcend history.  In 1960, Americans came to know quickly that the world would not soon end when a Catholic became President. Perhaps, too, this year’s election can lead some uniformed voters to learn a thing or two about Mormonism – and about Mexico.  Odd, often contradictory moments in life can teach important lessons, educate people and move them out of self-induced ignorance.  Sometimes the news that informs people can be mundane, sometimes riveting.

Some Republican voters who were once head-over-heels in love with Newt Gingrich are still reeling from the news that this schlock anti-government conservative politician took millions of dollars from semi-governmental agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to act as a historian.  The mundane should be amusing at best.  That Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico should not be shocking – in another time and place, that is.

In today’s Republican Party, however, anything associated with Mexico, immigration and the Dream Act that would help immigrant students is electric to GOP voters.  And Mitt Romney is personally associated with all three in deed and in concept:  With a father born in Mexico of a family that emigrated there and then emigrated back to the United States and that received government aid to get them started upon their return, Romney perhaps ought to consider using the ˜ over the ‘n’ in his name.  In an age when an anxious public pines for authentic men and women to lead them into the future, spelling his name Romñey would be a more accurate representation of who he is.  Continue reading →