Romney, Utah's adopted son credited with saving the 2002 Winter Olympics, provides the best opportunity for a Mormon to become president of the United States since Romney's late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was the Republican front-runner in 1968 before an ill-advised public comment derailed his campaign.

While the general electorate probably is more receptive than in the past to a believer of a faith still relatively unknown and misunderstood throughout much of America, the current political climate has erected new hurdles to Romney's chances of getting the Republican nomination. These are hurdles that his father did not face nearly 40 years ago.

The party has been taken over by the evangelical Christian movement like never before. George W. Bush can give much of the credit for his two presidential victories to the support of that large and growing Republican base.

When the senior Romney ran for president, the Christian right held very little sway in the GOP. One of the party's most popular leaders at the time was New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, not exactly known for his Bible-thumping. Barry Goldwater, feared as a right-wing radical in the 1960s, would be considered too liberal to get the Republican presidential nomination today because he was pro-choice.

Observers of the Republican infrastructure say that as many as 40 percent of the delegates to the National Republican Convention in 2004 were from the evangelical Christian movement. Anyone wishing to gain the Republican nomination in three years will need to win the blessing of that group.

And that's the problem for Romney. Evangelical Christians seem to have an obsessive distrust of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, denouncing its members as non-Christians.

Romney might need to do some explaining to "the moral majority" on past stands. He had to negotiate the political tar pits for a Republican in liberal Massachusetts, first running for the Senate against Ted Kennedy, then winning the governor's seat in 2002. He tiptoed through the abortion issue and made some comments during the Senate campaign that he was pro-choice on abortion - the popular stand to take in Massachusetts.

But when he was in Utah running the Salt Lake Olympic Committee and rumors swirled that he might seek office in the conservative Beehive State, he bristled at suggestions he was pro-choice. Back in Massachusetts, he was careful with his statements, but since winning the governorship, he has taken a sharp turn to the right on moral issues, an indication he is moving onto the national Republican stage.

Romney even chastised Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch at a Republican event in Salt Lake City recently for Hatch's support of stem cell research, a litmus-test issue with the evangelicals.

But even if Romney can show the fundamentalist right he is with them on their issues, his Mormonism may become the issue.

Consider these examples of fundamentalist Christian attitudes towards the LDS Church while noting the extent of fundamentalism in Republican Party politics:

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which has chapters throughout the country but is most active in the South, chose a high school football player in Nashville as its Christian athlete of the year for Tennessee a few years ago.. But when the association discovered their winner was a Mormon, it pulled the award and gave it to someone else. Former BYU football Coach Lavell Edwards learned of the disgrace and wrote to the association about his concerns over the fairness of that policy. "My letter didn't seem to make much difference," Edwards said.

When a nondenominational Christian Church in Cordova, Alaska, sponsored a "unity" musical concert, inviting musicians and singers to participate, the church's minister refused to allow two Mormon missionaries to be included in a choir unless they took off their missionary badges.

Conservative African-American columnist and commentator Mychal Massie tried to paint Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as a racist and used as his "proof" the fact that Reid is a Mormon. "(Reid) is simply being true to his inbred familial heritage," Massie wrote. "Mormons believed, as Reid's comments indicate he still does: 'Cain slew his brother . . . and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin' (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, Pages 290-291)."

When the international Baptist convention was held in Salt Lake City a few years ago, some visiting Baptists were quoted as saying they would try to convert the locals because Mormons are not really Christians and are in danger of going to hell.

That creates a challenge for Romney in the Republican battle for the presidency. But he is articulate, charismatic and conservative and could do some of his own converting.

He should just remember never to say he was brainwashed.