This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
WASHINGTON - Prominent Mormon supporters of Sen. John McCain's presidential bid were outraged at a campaign worker's attempt to link the LDS Church to terrorists.
Chad Workman, the Warren County, Iowa, chairman of McCain's campaign, addressed a gathering of Republican activists in April and questioned whether Mormons were Christians. But he went much further, discussing an article alleging the LDS Church helps fund Hamas, and associating the treatment of Mormon women with the Taliban, according to a report in Thursday's Boston Globe.
Workman's comments were a direct attack against rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is viewed by some evangelicals as outside the mainstream, and in some cases, as a cult.
"I think that's reprehensible," said state Sen. Curtis Bramble, a Mormon who recently switched from backing Romney to supporting McCain. "You can't control all of your volunteers [but] this would cause me very serious concern. I don't think there's room for that rhetoric in the campaign. Period."
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is heading up McCain's efforts in Utah, said he would personally talk to McCain and ask him to take action against Workman if the anti-Mormon report is true.
"I'm going to ask him to send out a message from campaign headquarters that no one from his organization should say things like that," Shurtleff said.
A top Romney supporter in Utah called for Workman to be axed from McCain's campaign.
"I know that McCain does not believe that and would never sanction it," said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and one-time head of Romney's former political action committee, the Commonwealth PAC.
McCain "needs to remove [Workman] from having any position within the campaign, any status from within the campaign."
McCain himself has denounced attacks against Romney's religion or anyone else's in the campaign. During a visit to Salt Lake City earlier this year, McCain was asked what he would tell supporters of his that were bashing Romney's Mormonism.
"I would make the most forceful statement possible that there is no place in American life for that, much less politics," McCain said.
McCain spokesman Danny Diaz said Thursday that the campaign has apologized to Romney and "reiterated that comments concerning his religion are inappropriate and unacceptable."
McCain and Romney have ramped up their attacks on each other in recent months as both seek support in early primary contest states. Romney has bumped into the lead in two of the three early states as McCain has lost ground, according to polls.
Romney spokesman Kevin Madden says targeting a candidate because of his or her faith is "absolutely uncalled for."
"It's important that Sen. McCain apologize for these types of attacks coming from his campaign," Madden said. "I'd expect that Sen. McCain's supporters in Utah are just as disappointed as we are that their campaign has resorted to this kind of repugnant behavior."
The revelation of the McCain supporter's comments is part of a spate of attacks against Mormonism of late, including implications or forwarding of anti-Mormon rhetoric by the Rev. Al Sharpton, and staffers for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback.
All three apologized to Romney and LDS Church leaders.