Finally someone in the media is making sense of the numerous polls that say America would never elect a Mormon president. Here is a breakdown from pundit Charlie Cook (thanks to Viriginians for Mitt Romney for the scoop):

"As you may know, Mitt Romney is a Mormon who is currently governor of Massachusetts. If the Republican Party nominated Mitt Romney for president, regardless of how you personally might vote, how likely is it that among your friends, neighbors or relatives there might be some people who choose not to vote for Romney because he is Mormon?"

Forty-three percent chose the option of "not likely at all," while another 24 percent picked "only somewhat likely," for a total of 67 percent. Thirteen percent said "very likely" and another eight percent chose "fairly likely," for a total of 21 percent.

Interestingly, the one in five who seemed to think that Romney's faith was a deal-breaker and the two-thirds who said it wouldn't be didn't vary as much by party as one might think. Among both Republicans and independents, 19 percent in each case picked either the "very likely" or "fairly likely" options and 23 percent of Democrats chose that course. Among Republicans, 71 percent picked either only "somewhat" or "not likely," while 70 percent of independents and 64 percent of Democrats chose one of those.

Indeed there was surprisingly little variation between the 40 subgroups tested, and the only ones that varied on the combined "very likely/fairly likely" group more than five points one way or the other were blacks (38 percent) and likely Democratic primary voters (26 percent).

With this poll showing that, among registered Republicans and Republican presidential primary voters as well as independents and swing voters, the very likely/fairly likely number is under 20 percent, and the only groups that jumped high were those highly unlikely to vote for any Republican, it's possible that Romney's challenge may be lesser than some have warned. As the campaign becomes more engaged, it will become more apparent whether these numbers hold up.

Cook also had this to say:

The Republican who has helped himself enormously over the last year has been Romney, who matches Gingrich in intelligence and is certainly an accomplished speaker, but has not yet laid out a vision of where he would take the party if nominated or the country if elected. Unquestionably, Romney has an enormous amount of talent, and a Republican able to win in Massachusetts is certainly a player who has demonstrated an ability to win on the road.