Is 2012 good for the Mormons?

What are we to think, now that a Mormon has clinched the presidential nomination of one of America’s two major parties? The respectable Victorian men who ruled America’s politics during the 1912 election would have been stricken with chills at the thought of a presidential election a century hence pitting a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against an African American. So looked at in one way, the 2012 election – like the 2008 – signals that America does seem to be a melting pot. African Americans and Mormons alike – like Catholics before them – once reviled and suspect minorities, are now capable participants in American public life.