It is a truth universally acknowledged that a 60-year-old politician with good looks, a private life that is above reproach, a decent record as governor of Massachusetts, a reputation as the saviour of the 2002 winter Olympics in Utah and a quarter-billion dollars earned as a leveraged buy-out specialist must be in want of the presidency. Mitt Romney, the possessor of those attributes, once stood atop Republican polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that start the nominating process in early January. But Mike Huckabee, the Bible-quoting former Arkansas governor, has lately vaulted past Mr Romney in Iowa, with the support of evangelical Christians. Something bugs voters about this otherwise estimable candidate. Mr Romney suspects it is his religion.

Mr Romney is active in the Mormon church, which most Americans neither know well nor trust. They are spooked by reports of hardline Mormons practising polygamy, a tenet of the faith in the decades after its 19th-century founding. They are uneasy that Mormonism has canonical books besides the Bible. And there are more pragmatic concerns. A Christian in Iowa told The New York Times she worried Mr Romney’s prayers might not “get through”. Catholicism and Judaism are no longer a bar to the presidency, but Mormonism, like Islam, may be. A quarter of Americans tell pollsters they would not vote for a Mormon.