Evangelical voters gathered here yesterday to weigh their political options even as one of their champions, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, officially withdrew from the 2008 presidential contest, robbing many of their first choice in the Republican nominating battle.
The 2,000 activists attending the Values Voter Summit listened to the candidates, some prayed for guidance, and many expressed deep discomfort with the Republican Party’s two front-runners: former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Romney presented himself as the antiabortion, pro-family, pro-religion contender whom Christian conservatives are seeking.
“I’ll oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, oppose partial-birth abortion. I’ll oppose abortion in military clinics. I’ll work to ban embryonic cloning,” Romney promised.
Romney only briefly mentioned his Mormon faith, a source of concern among some Christian groups, saying, “I understand that some people think that they couldn’t support someone of my faith,” then joking that they must be thinking of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is also a Mormon.
Giuliani is scheduled to face the group this morning with a message that emphasizes areas where he agrees with social conservatives, such as national security, taxes and the economy.
Readers here may be interested in this comment from “The Plank,” a blog run by The New Republic.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2007/10/22/179.aspx
It is very worthwhile as well to actually click on the links to the pieces by Amy Sullivan and Marc Ambinder.
I write this not as any criticism of either Huckabee or the Values Summit, but purely from the perspective of a politics junkie.
I must confess that it may surprise commenters at T1:9, but I am not now nor have I ever been a conservative politically.
That confession made, how can evangelical GOP voters not see Mike Huckabee as a viable candidate ?
Huckabee is fond of saying that he’s a “conservative — I’m just not angry about it.” His mood is usually that of a perpetually cheery youth pastor who just might grab a guitar and rock out with the praise band if the spirit hits him. (Huckabee does in fact play bass guitar with his band, Capital Offense.) At the Values Voters Summit, however, Huckabee started off with more fire and brimstone than he has displayed thus far in the campaign, hitting all the red-meat conservative issues: Islamo-fascism (ignoring the threat “will get us killed”), immigration (“we need to build a fence”) and abortion (“a Holocaust”).
All good preachers know to give their congregations some breathing space before heading into the main point of their sermon. Huckabee used that rhythm as well with a story about the early 20th century evangelist Billy Sunday. And then he got down to business. Zinging his opponents, Huckabee said that social conservatives need a candidate who speaks “the language of Zion as a mother tongue.” And challenging the Christian Right leaders who are lining up behind Romney and, to a lesser extent, candidates like Fred Thompson, he urged: “Let us not sacrifice our principles for anybody’s politics.”
Mark me down as agreeing with Chuck Norris for what may be the first time in my life – Mike would be my guy.
Be suspicious of any poll that requires a “donation” to register and vote.