Posted by
Steve on Monday, October 22, 2007 11:26:05 PM
I am heartened to see that Evangelical Christian Leaders are now starting to migrate to Mitt Romney. There has been about one or two a day for the past week. That is not a lot, but it does indicate that a trend is starting. Evangelical leaders have decided that Rudy Giuliani is not suitable for a nominee. They looked at the list of likely nominees and selected the one that was closest to their positions on the issues. They also made the decision on whether the candidate was positioned to make use of their support.
Mitt Romney fit criteria of the current list of Evangelical Leaders most closely. He was one of the three most likely candidates to be nominated. The other two are Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. The Evangelical Leaders decided they did not want either of those candidates to be the Republican Presidential candidate.
Mike Huckabee has been mentioned as a potential recipient of the Evangelical support. The only problem is that Mike Huckabee is not positioned to win the nomination. Mike Huckabee is a real nice guy. He is great on the issues. He just does not have the fire in the belly to actually win the nomination. The ones with the fire in the Republican field are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
Mitt Romney is positioned to win the nomination. Without the Evangelical support he is leading the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. He is close in South Carolina. He is leading or a close second in most of the rest of the states. With Evangelical support he should be able to take almost all of the Southern states. He would probably be able to take most of the Midwestern states as well.
I look for this trend to continue. Evangelical leaders will continue to move to Mitt Romney’s campaign because his campaign is the best place for them to be to stop Rudy Giuliani. If they put themselves anywhere else, they are likely to make it possible for Rudy Giuliani to win the nomination. That would be a disaster for the Republican Party. The Republican Party has to have a pro-life candidate. Rudy is anti-unborn life. We need a nominee that reflects the platform of the party. We need someone who is different than the Democrat candidate.
One thing I really like about Mitt Romney’s campaign is the “Ask Mitt Anything” meetings that he holds. He allows questions from anyone about anything. He generally does extremely well. Holding these meetings entirely unscripted makes it likely that he would make a mistake every now and then. He has made his mistakes, but they have diminished as he has gone through the campaign. That will help him when he debates the Democrat candidate.
Mrs. Bill Clinton has held the town meetings like all the other candidates. Her meetings are entirely scripted. There are no unscripted questions. All questions and answers are prepared in advance. This is to reduce her usual foot in mouth problem. She still makes the usual number of mental mistakes like all candidates. She is not prepared to be asked anything by anybody. For a supposedly smart woman, she goes out of her way to make sure that all her events are entirely pre-planned. That is no way to handle the diverse problems that arise in a real campaign or if she held the Presidency. She would be unable to react quickly to problems as they arise. She would have to have her answers scripted out ahead of time. Not good if an emergency arose.
It looks to me that the candidates will be Mitt Romney for the Republicans and Mrs. Bill Clinton for the Democrats. That gives people the biggest choice difference between two candidates in my lifetime. Mitt Romney wants to get the country back to individual freedom. Mrs. Bill Clinton wants to increase socialism and government dependence. The choice will be freedom and light or dependence and darkness. I like our odds in that scenario.