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WASHINGTON - GOP Sen. Sam Brownback apologized to Mitt Romney on Monday and plans to do the same with leaders of the LDS Church after a staffer on Brownback's presidential campaign circulated an anti-Mormon list on her personal e-mail account.
The e-mail from Brownback's southeast field director in Iowa is the latest in a string of "Mormons aren't Christian"-type information flowing into the 2008 race in which Romney, a lifelong Mormon, is trying to escape stereotypes about his faith and preach tolerance to those who might view his religion with hesitancy.
The staffer, Emma Nemecek, sent the e-mail to a dozen people from her personal AOL e-mail last week asking if they knew whether any of the items were "inaccurate."
The list included a sentence that says "the only thing Christianity and the LDS Church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith."
It also said that "those who claim that LDS is a Christian denomination don't know Mormon or Christian theology."
Romney's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expected to be an obstacle in his bid for the White House. Polls have shown a large swath of voters wouldn't consider voting for a Mormon, a faith that some evangelical Protestants are wary of.
Brownback and Romney both have positioned themselves on the GOP's right wing going into the primaries by taking hard-line stands on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Romney, though, according to most polls, is clearly the more popular of the two.
Romney's spokesman Kevin Madden said Monday that targeting a candidate's faith "as some sort of campaign smear tactic is simply reprehensible."
"I'd expect that any campaign engaging in these actions would put an end to it, and I'd also expect that the candidate of any campaign whose religious smear tactics are exposed would apologize and publicly condemn the actions of their campaign," Madden said.
Brownback's campaign spokesman Brian Hart says the e-mail was not sent out on behalf of the campaign, but nevertheless, the staffer was reprimanded and has apologized.
"The senator completely disavows any attacks on his [Romney's] faith," Hart said. "It won't happen again."
A request for comment Monday from the LDS Church was not immediately answered.
Questions about Mormonism have been raised previously.
An anonymous flier bashing Mormons recently made the rounds in South Carolina, home of the nation's second GOP primary contest. The Rev. Al Sharpton also apologized for saying in May that "those who believe in God" would defeat Romney.
A staffer for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani sent out a story this month by The Salt Lake Tribune asking whether Romney would fulfill disputed Mormon lore of a Mormon stepping in to preserve a U.S. Constitution under siege. Giuliani personally called to apologize to Romney for that e-mail and vowed to not raise his religion as a campaign tactic.
Sen. John McCain said earlier this year he condemns any attacks on a person's faith after supporters for him criticized Romney's Mormon religion. The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported in January that the McCain camp once sent out comments from evangelical leader James Dobson questioning any presidential candidate who is a member of the LDS Church.
Herbert Klein, a national fellow for the American Enterprise Institute and the White House's first communications director under President Nixon, says there shouldn't be a religious litmus test in the race and he hopes the issue becomes moot.
"It's clearly unfortunate that one's religion is playing a part in this campaign," adds Klein, who has helped run five presidential campaigns. "You can't control everybody who is on your staff," he acknowledges, but "every candidate ought to discourage religion as a factor in the campaign."