Most people who follow politics, and many who don't, have probably heard by now that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Filmmaker Adam Christing, however, said that Romney is only about 50 percent the focus of his film "A Mormon President."

Christing is preparing two versions of the film, a one-hour cut for television and a 90-minute theatrical cut, and hopes to find distribution for both in the next month or two. Interest in "A Mormon President" could get an immediate boost if the results of the Ames (Iowa) Straw Poll, a long-lead caucus predictor held Friday, are in Romney's favor. (Poll results had not been announced as of the print deadline for this story.)

There hasn't actually been a Mormon president, or at least not of the United States (church members formally refer to the faith's highest authority as being president of the church, and the church president's two counselors are also called presidents). And Romney is not the first or the only Latter-day Saint to aspire to become the nation's highest-elected official: his father, a former governor of Michigan, campaigned for the presidency in 1967 and '68; more recently, longtime Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch was an early contender for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.

The other presidential candidacy contemplated by Christing's film, however, is that of the very first Latter-day Saint to seek the White House: Joseph Smith, founder and first president of the LDS Church, who announced his candidacy just months prior to his death by assassination in 1844.

Smith's candidacy, Christing said, wasn't just a brag or posture: "He had a developed political platform."

After deciding about four years ago that he wanted to make a film, Christing, 43, originally intended to have it be "about 90 percent" focused on Smith.

That objective shifted during filming in states important in LDS Church history, where the filmmakers kept encountering what Christing called "very strong anti-Mormon sentiment." While visiting a bar in Missouri, he said, the film crew talked to people who made derogatory statements about Latter-day Saints, said they'd never vote for one and were happy to repeat their words for the camera.

"It was like the war of 1838 never ended for these guys," Christing said, referring to the 19th century conflict between Latter-day Saint settlers and their Missouri neighbors that escalated to the point of a state executive order (formally rescinded in 1976) empowering Missouri militia members to exterminate Mormons.

He could be a contender

Those experiences convinced Christing that trying to figure out whether and why Romney's personal faith might impede his candidacy would be a natural complement to a historical perspective on Smith's White House bid.

Especially since the Republican presidential nomination has begun to seem like a very attainable goal for the Romney campaign. Kelly Patterson, an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, said that Romney's amply demonstrated knack of building a national campaign organization and, in particular, of raising money, has made him a formidable contender.

Perhaps most importantly of all, Patterson said, Romney registers impressively in the category of "candidate quality:" "He's smart and he's affable and he has experience."

Ron Scott, a Boston-based author and journalist who discussed Romney at the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium earlier this week, agreed with Patterson's point about organization -- the Romney organization, Scott said, "seems almost bulletproof, as they say" -- and said that the candidate's wife, Ann, is another important asset.

"She humanizes Mitt in ways that are hard to explain," Scott said. "While their love story, their success as parents, seems torn from some storybook, it is as substantive and genuine as it is refreshing. This comes through loud and clear even to the skeptics and cynics and reprobates I hang out with."

Christing said that he "absolutely" sees Romney making a serious bid for Republican nomination: "You just can't deny his fundraising ability."

There's just that one little snag. Or as Christing put it, "There's an elephant in the room, and it's his faith. His faith is important to him and people want to know why."

And, for some people, it's possible that no amount of explanation from Romney will change anything. Christing said he's found that the mobs that acted against Smith were frequently led or spurred on by ministers of other faiths. And Christing thinks the interdenominational enmity is still alive and well -- some Christians, he said, just "can't stomach Joseph Smith's doctrines.

"Romney could be in agreement with them on every political issue, but because he's a Mormon, they just can't vote for him."

In the pocket of church leadershipfi

It's at least somewhat ironic that Romney's faith could undermine him. Patterson said that most research shows American voters identify more strongly with presidential candidates who express some sort of religious faith.

As Patterson sees it, part of the problem is that, despite the candidacies of Romney's LDS predecessors, the church itself is still an enigma to most voters. "Not much is known about the LDS Church nationally among rank-and-file voters," Patterson said.

And, despite the LDS Church's well-documented position of political neutrality -- church spokesman Rob Howell confirmed that the church does not endorse political candidates and does not encourage or support members who seek political office -- many people are bound to suspect a Mormon candidate of being susceptible to the influence of church leadership.

(The LDS Church, in its formal statement of political neutrality, includes the following: "Elected officials who are Latter-day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated Church position. While the Church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent.")

Christing, who is not LDS but is a member of the Mormon History Association (a scholarly group not formally affiliated with the LDS Church), hopes to complete film by fall and expects to spend less than $1 million on production.

He said that he doesn't want to tell people what to think about Smith so much as inspire them to seek their own answers. After all, even after talking to historians, active Latter-day Saints (including Susan Easton Black), excommunicates (such as D. Michael Quinn) and people who actively proselytize against LDS doctrines (cable-access personality Sean McCraney), Christing himself doesn't know what to make of the very first Latter-day Saint to run for president.

"I think if I've learned anything about him, it's that he's a puzzle," Christing said. A riddle who could affect presidential politics today far more than he did in his own time. As Christing put it, "He's probably a puzzle that Romney's going to have to put together for people."

Cody Clark can be reached at 344-2542 or cclark@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.