After Mitt Romney announced his withdrawal from the race yesterday, God-o-Meter phoned Mark DeMoss, a prominent evangelical PR man and Romney backer who spent most of January traveling with the Romney campaign to various primary states. Like others on the Romney team, DeMoss believes the Mormon factor hurt Romney, but that it was greatly exacerbated because Mike Huckabee gave evangelical voters such an easy alternative. Doesn’t sound like he’s about to sign up for Huck:
I’m disappointed in the number of people supporting Governor Huckabee on the basis of his Christian faith alone. I think that’s an unhealthy proposition, frankly. People actually told me that [as an evangelical], he’s one of our own. He deserves a shot.” I’d ask, “What do you know about his tenure for governor or his position in this or that policy and for many to say, I don’t know any of that, but he stands for Christ….” We don’t apply that standard to anything else in our life, to choosing a doctor or hiring en employee.
If there had not been an evangelical alternative, I think Romney would be the nominee and would probably be president. Because as I talked to people, if they were given a choice between a Mormon and somebody who did not share their views and social issues, or someone who called some evangelicals “agents of intolerance,” or given the choice of Clinton or Obama, 99-and-a-half percent of those people would say I can go for Romney under those circumstances. [Romney’s Mormonism] was a factor, but because there was an evangelical option [Huckabee].
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posted February 8, 2008 at 4:15 pm
It is beyond me why people wil vote for or against a candidate on the basis of his religion or lack thereof. What has he done heretofore carries a lot more weight than guesses at what part religion will play.
posted February 8, 2008 at 4:50 pm
It would be interesting to see what Romney was “believing” when McCain was quoted with the “Agents of Intolerance”. Why can Romney change his views on legislation, and McCain can’t shake a comment he made in passing, not something as deliberate as legislation. Demoss is a dope in thinking Romney could win. Is he kidding himself? If Obama wins the dem nod it is 1984 all over again…this time in the democrats favor.
posted February 10, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Republicans like DeMoss are now seeing why they can’t have it both ways-you can’t court evangelicals in your party and then scratch your head when they decide to vote for one of their own.