As the founder of the blog Evangelicals for Mitt, Nancy French has spent the better part of the last two years trying to convince fellow born-again Christians to back a Mormon for president. A published author who spends most of her time raising her two kids in rural Tennessee, the 33-year-old French got close enough to the Romney campaign to be hired as a consultant last year and to have ghostwritten Ann Romney’s memoirs, a project that was put on indefinite hold last week when Mitt Romney withdrew from the presidential race.
In interview on Friday, French was understandably upset, especially because Romney’s exit was provoked largely by his defeat to Mike Huckabee in five evangelical-rich Southern states on Super Tuesday. A big reason for those defeats, French argues, is that Christian Right leaders never engaged in a conversation about whether or not evangelicals ought to let their faith prevent them from voting for a Mormon who shares their political positions.
“I would have loved for some Christian leaders to have said, ‘We have a Mormon running for president and we have a Baptist preacher… but who really reflects your values?’” French says. “‘Should you vote only for a Christian?’”
It’s impossible to know for sure, but that kind of conversation, especially were it led by Christian Right leaders supportive of Romney, probably would have made it harder for Huckabee to ride evangelical support to so many early victories. And Mitt Romney might have garnered enough evangelical support to still be challenging McCain today.
Instead, evangelicals are stuck with Huck, who’s got less than a third of John McCain’s delegates and who needs more delegates than are currently available to close the gap and take the nomination. So instead of Romney, who opposes federally funded embryonic stem cell research and supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, socially conservative evangelicals will now have to endure McCain—who supports federally-funded stem cell research and opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage—as the GOP nominee.
French grew so distraught about the failure of evangelicals leaders to discuss how to handle a Mormon candidate that she called Focus on the Family’s 800-number last year to request that the group’s founder, James Dobson, step up to the plate.
But Dobson refused. He did publicly hint that he liked both Romney and Huckabee—and said he loathed McCain in no uncertain terms—but he never openly discussed Romney’s Mormonism or how evangelicals might deal with it. Neither did a host of other high-profile evangelical figures. So it’s little surprise that evangelicals have wound up voting for one of their own—Huckabee. “We got used to having one of our own in the White House for eight years, when in reality, that’s not the way the Christian Right usually operates,” says French. “That’s why we haven’t had Alan Keyes in the White House.”
Or Pat Robertson or Gary Bauer, for that matter. As presidential candidates, preachers and religious leaders have always found it difficult to break out of their sectarian bases. If Romney winds up running in four years, French may again try to make that case, and to convince evangelical leaders to tackle the Mormon issue head-on. In the meantime, she’s thinking of changing the name of her blog to “Evangelicals in Exile.”
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The hook line and sinker way many of the Religious Right have swallowed Romney's garbage is incredible. His lack of support amongst evangelicals has nothing to do with Mormonism. It has to do with regular people recognizing a fraud when they see one and not getting caught up in grand ideas of what the perfect candidate might look like.
What we have seen is how Rush, Hannity, Coulter have no pull with anybody outside of Washington DC.
As I have said in other blogs, the Republican party, to it detriment, has been formed around religious groups that now lack the Christian good will to keep themselves from falling apart. The Republican party is no different than religious tribal fighting of the Middle East. Religious extremism will consume itself before it will save itself. Good luck Republicans in the general election.
The religious background of a presidential candidate is one of the very last in the correct priority of considerations for the highest office of the land. It is merely a small gauge to assess whether they fully understand right from wrong only when there is insufficient personal records to corroborate...that's it. In Willard's case there is an abundance of direct evidence he has no grasp of right from wrong as a loyal citizen nor conservative, let alone, a president. Therefore, our instructions in the rightful approach to choosing a candidate never reaches Willard's religious background before he has disqualified himself in running on the wrong political ticket.
Willard Mitt Romney
http://willardromney.blogspot.com/
For a further and crystal clear example in the fallacy of relying on religious association for ones singular and wrongheaded priority of consideration for a president is the records and behavior of a Baptist preacher, Huckabee. 14 charges of ethics violations in the governor's office with 5 of them with convictions is merely one of the many documented subversive behavior he has demonstrated.
Mike "The Huckster" Huckabee
http://mikeyhuckabee.blogspot.com/
I am going to miss the 'Evangelicals for Mitt' website and thank them for all their many efforts. They had the only evangelical blog I knew of that understood the Constitution mandate that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification" for any public office in the United States.
Both they and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) stated that this meant "not holding a candidate's private beliefs against him or her, if the candidate affirms, as [John F.] Kennedy did, that regarding public matters and the national interest, 'the church does not speak for me.'"
In other press releases, the ADL also said, "Governor Romney has made an important contribution to our ongoing national dialogue regarding the appropriate role of religion in politics. We agree that there is no place in our society for bigotry, and that one's religion should never be a test for political office. We realize that Gov. Romney is fighting an unacceptable prejudice against him because of his faith, and understand his need to proclaim himself a Christian."
"We are deeply concerned, however, that it has become part of our political culture for candidates to be forced into asserting their religiosity, with some even openly hawking their faith on the campaign trial. Some of the things that the candidates have said about their religious views make us deeply uncomfortable. There is this dance, this appeal based on religion, that candidates use to attract religious voters which we feel is contrary to the spirit of what this country is all about."
If a Mormon ever has courage to run again as a Republican, I hope that time or circumstance will have changed enough that evangelicals and even EFM could be in agreement with the ADL that, "a nominee's religion was of concern only to hard-core bigots on the fringe."
"Americans, no matter what their faith, background or tradition, and regardless of their political persuasion, should respect Romney's commitment to his faith. It is clear that Romney is fighting an unacceptable prejudice against him because of his faith, and his need to proclaim himself a Christian is understandable. His effort to emphasize our nation's "grand tradition" of religious tolerance and liberty should be embraced by all Americans."
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