As I have inferred many times: The GOP top tier have some "splainin' to do."

Giuliani: Why my rabid liberal tendancies won't impact my view on judicial appointments. (If he is even able to make this case. With no record to show for it - most conservatives will view it as all talk.)

McCain: Himself... McCain/Feingold, "Gang of 14", and why he is a terrible Republican and even worse Senator...

Romney: The Mormon thing...

Each of these negatives have to be effectively explained or answered by these candidates. And they must do so candidly. (Paranthetically... these are the same reasons a Fred Thompson candidacy would have so much immediate attraction to conservative GOP voters in the primary season. No nuance, no explanations, just simple commonsense ideas that come from a man with obvious gravitas.)

And yes I did refer to the "Mormon thing" as a negative. Mainly for this reason: Bible-belt voters, particularly evangelical Christians in southern states know more about Mormonism than do many mormons. They will take this into consideration in the the voting booth with them.

Which is why today's advice (for Gov. Romney) from the NYTIMES (of all places) is so on the money.

Thus, when Mr. Romney told South Carolina Republicans a few months ago that Jesus was his “personal savior,” he used Southern Baptist language to affirm a relationship to Christ that is quite different in Mormon belief. (For Southern Baptists, “personal savior” implies a specific born-again experience that is not required or expected of Mormons.) This is not a winning strategy for Mr. Romney, whose handlers should be aware that Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals know Mormon doctrine better than most other Americans do — if only because they study Mormonism in order to rebut its claims.

Mr. Romney worships a different God and a different Jesus than evangelicals do. Trying to white-wash this fact is going to smell fishy to GOP evangelicals. And Gov. Romney needs to, if he has not done so already, immediately hire sound evangelical voices as part of his inner circle. He needs to have some idea of how to position issues, speeches,  and answers to questions so that he does not come off sounding like anything less than absolutely genuine.

The theological gap between Mormons and Christians can not be bridged. And it is a wasteful consumption of time to attempt to do so. He needs to instead transparently acknowledge those differences, and make the case for why his positions and ideas are attractive to the evangelical voter. And he should do so as transparently as possible...

And for the record... more transparency on the campaign trail would be an attractive alternative - in many respects!