150 Evangelicals Can’t Be Wrong
A group of 150 of the country’s leading social conservative and evangelical leaders met yesterday on a ranch outside Houston and, after three rounds of balloting, decided who they wanted as their official anyone-but-Romney alternative: Rick Santorum. Though the meeting was described by some as ‘too little, too late,’ it was still seen as the last great hope for a real challenge to Mitt Romney who, after his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, has already begun to give off that “inevitable nominee” glow.
I’m leaning towards the “too little, too late” side of the argument, but hesitate to commit because, well, Nate Silver disagrees with me: “I’m not buying the CW [conventional wisdom] that evangelical endorsement of Santorum is too little, too late. SC still very fluid.”
Of course, it makes sense that this group would pick Santorum. I’ve always wondered why he wasn’t shown the Evangelical love sooner. Which lands me back in the “too little, too late” camp. I can’t help but wonder how this late endorsement changes the field, or even if it can.
I’ll give the group points on ideological consistency, but take away points on political strategy. Santorum is a loser. Everyone knows it, and it explains why the Evangelicals played hard to get. It’s obvious Santorum didn’t have them at hello. Once again, this is about stopping Romney.
Tags: 2012 Republican Presidential Primary, Evangelicals, Rick Santorum
“Evangelical Voters Neutralize Themselves in 2012”
It will be interesting to see what evangelical voters do when confronted with two pro-choice candidates (Romney vs. Obama). If you are an evangelical, Romney is considered pro-choice.
Dole vs. Clinton came close to that scenario, and look what happened to Dole.
I’m looking forward to Romney running around to all the megachurches explaining how pro-life he is, each time alienating another big chunk of women and independent voters.
All the 150 evangelical’s had to do is view the following speech and they could have saved themselves a lot of time and energy.
Speech titled “faith in America”, given by mitt romney on December 6th, 2007, at the bush senior library, with bush Sr in attendence.
Excellent speech.
http://mittromneycentral.com/speeches/2007-speeches/faith-in-America/
I’ve no doubt that SC is still fluid — the endorsement by these evangelicals seems awfully late AND makes them look like they are playing catch up. I guess they are trying to force folks to rally behind one other not-Mitt candidate so that one has a longer-term chance. These guys need to deliver some money to Santorum for this to be meaningful, I think.
Not only can 150 evangelicals be wrong but they can be out of their freaking minds. Santorum is somewhat to the right of Martin Bormann. Should Santorum be elected, the national anthem will be changed to the Horst Wessel Lied. Since this is my first post, let me tell you that yes, sometimes I’m a little bit of an extremist. Other times I’m a lot extremist. Once in a while, I’m on the money.