A Mormon political scientist at Notre Dame on Mormons and American politics

You may have noted from my short description in the program that I teach at the University of Notre Dame, and one of the occupational hazards of being a political scientist is that occasionally you’re asked to speak on various round tables about elections and such things. And so a few years ago, it was actually during the 2004 presidential election cycle, I was asked to participate on a round table at Notre Dame about Catholics and American politics. It’s a sensible thing for Notre Dame to host an event around.

Well, I went to this event and I sat down and I introduced myself to the audience of students there, and I said, “Well, there are two things you need to know about me. The first is that I am not Catholic, and the second is that I’m actually not even an American. I am a Canadian.”

(Laughter.)

DR. CAMPBELL: And then in what passes for a joke in political science, my big punch line was, “So if you want to hear what a non-Catholic, non-American has to say about Catholics and American politics, stick around.”

Well, the next day the campus newspaper at Notre Dame, The Observer, had a front page story about this round table, and the very first line of that front page story went like this: “Yesterday, Professor David Campbell, neither a Catholic nor an American, said…”

http://www.eppc.org/news/newsID.4625/news_detail.asp