so ... Mitt Romney.

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Romney To Give "Religion Speech"
Dec. 2, 2007(CBS) By CBSNews.com Senior Political Editor Vaughn Ververs.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will deliver a much-anticipated speech on religious faith at the George H. W. Bush library on Thursday, CBS News has confirmed. Romney's Mormon faith has been an underlying theme of his presidential candidacy but, until today, it has been an area he and his campaign have shied away from addressing directly.

"This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor's own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden in a statement released Sunday evening.

On Monday, Romney said he decided to give the speech because the subject is of interest in early voting Iowa, according to the Associated Press.

"I can tell you I'm not going to be talking so much about my faith as I am talking about the religious heritage of our country and the role in which it played in the founding of the nation and the role which I think religion should generally play today in our society," Romney said in an interview with WBZ-AM.

He added: "I will also talk about how my own values and my own faith will inform my thinking if I were lucky enough to become president of the united states."

Romney also compared his run to when his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, ran for the White House in 1968, AP reports.

"…Times have changed and particularly in a state like Iowa, there's been interest in religion generally and I think religion does have a very important role in our society and therefore it's important to talk about our religious heritage," Romney said.

Throughout this campaign year, Romney has frequently been asked whether he would address his faith directly. Many evangelical Christians view the Mormon Church, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, critically. And voters in general have expressed hesitance about voting for a presidential candidate who subscribes to that faith. Last June, 43 percent of registered voters in a CBS News poll said they would not vote for a presidential candidate who is Mormon.

Romney has frequently been asked whether he would consider delivering a speech about his faith along the lines of the address John F. Kennedy gave when his Catholic faith provoked a similar discussion in the 1960 presidential campaign.

When asked about the possibility of giving such a speech by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer last month, Romney replied, "I probably could never do something that would compare to what John F. Kennedy did - his was a masterpiece in American political history." Romney continued, "Maybe there's a time when I talk mostly about religion. Although, I don't know, at this stage I'm getting good support across the country, people want to know a bit ... a bit about my faith. They learn a bit about it, and they'll say, 'OK, that's fine, now what do you think about the jihad? What do you think about being competitive with China? How can you fix your schools? What're you going to do about health care?' And those issues overtake any differences with regards to religion they might see."

The speech comes at a moment in the campaign when Romney's once-dominant lead in Iowa has eroded. He trails former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, in the most recent poll in the first-in-the-nation caucus. Social conservatives in Iowa, who wield plenty of influence in the caucuses, seem to have vacillated between candidates like Romney and Fred Thompson but appear to be coalescing around Huckabee. Romney's decision to address his faith directly looks to be an attempt to soothe evangelicals who may be having second thoughts.

"Governor Romney understands that faith is an important issue to many Americans, and he personally feels this moment is the right moment for him to share his views with the nation," Madden said in his statement. For Romney, it is a crucial moment in the campaign, one which will put his faith under the kind of spotlight he has sought to avoid until now.
 
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney. His Mormon faith is not one of them.
 
No pressure, Mitt.


Is This Romney's Kennedy Moment?
By Michael Duffy/Washington

Whenever a presidential candidate decides to give a speech about religious faith, he is taking his political career into his own hands.

That's chiefly because while the vast majority of Americans undoubtedly want their President to be a person of genuine faith, the consensus ends about right there. The kind of faith voters are looking for is harder to pinpoint. Americans want their President to be tolerant, reflective and well-versed in some religious tradition more than they want a strict adherence to any particular religious doctrine.

Mitt Romney's vow to deliver a speech on Thursday about faith and politics will probably end up being general in nature, as much about our faith as his. Romney, a Mormon, decided to give the address around the time he fell behind Mike Huckabee in Iowa, where an outsized proportion of the state's Republicans are evangelical Christians and in some cases take a dim view of Mormonism.

Romney's remarks have been compared to John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech in Houston about the role his Catholicism would play if he were elected. In that speech, Kennedy told a group of (mostly Baptist) Texas preachers that if he ever faced a choice between violating his conscience or the national interest, he would resign the office.

But there are a host of differences between the predicament facing Kennedy 47 years ago and the one facing Romney today.

The first is context. Kennedy was in the last weeks of a general election campaign. Romney has yet to be tested in a single primary. Kennedy gave his speech after an assembly of 150 anti-Catholic clergy issued a 2,000-word manifesto stating that no Catholic President could really be free of Vatican control. Though some Evangelical leaders have been publicly critical of Mormonism, no such charge has been laid at Romney's door. And though both men chose Texas as the place to give their remarks, the venues are very different. Kennedy spoke in the lion's den, addressing the greater Houston Ministerial Association, an alliance of Baptist preachers who found the whole idea of a Catholic in the White House almost beyond comprehension. By making his stand at the Bush Library in College Station, Romney is on the far safer ground of a college campus — and deep inside the Bush dynasty's official shrine to boot. If Romney were really following Kennedy's footsteps, he'd be addressing a small group of evangelical preachers — and then letting them ask questions, the way Kennedy did. That speech, which was greeted with a standing ovation, effectively settled the religious issue in the campaign.

The second crucial difference is demographic. By 1960 there were 35 to 40 million Catholics in the U.S., strategically settled in a dozen swing states from the Northeast across the Midwest. Those voters had in many cases gone for Eisenhower. Kennedy wanted to bring them home to the Democrats. Playing the religion card might have helped Richard Nixon in southern and border states, where he was already strong, but would have cost him in swing industrial states that he badly needed to win, so Nixon made a point of telling his people not to raise the religious issue (a plea that did was not heeded by everyone in Nixon's coalition).

Like Kennedy and his Catholics, Romney presumably has a lock on the Mormon vote. But that bloc is much smaller, perhaps five or six million strong. And instead of being concentrated in swing states, Mormons reside largely in intermountain states that for the most part are already solidly Republican. In the key states where Romney faces an early test, he isn't likely to find many Mormons, no matter what he says on Thursday.

Then there are the differing thresholds. For one thing, Kennedy needed to lower the fears of Vatican control of American policy, so he could flatly state that he would not be taking orders from Rome and that his faith was a private matter. Romney at a minimum needs to do that — to say that even though Mormons believe that the head of their church is a prophet who receives God's living word, he would not be taking orders from Salt Lake City — but must do more. Kennedy could wall off his private beliefs from his public policy and be fine, since Democrats especially were happy to keep the two apart. But Romney is in — let's not forget — a Republican primary fight, where base voters want to know that your faith informs your policy. It's almost a disqualifier to say it has no real influence on you.

Kennedy and his team thought the problem they faced was ignorance, which could be addressed by educating voters. But Evangelicals believe Mormonism is a faith that views the Bible as requiring revision, and that when Romney says Christ is his Saviour, he doesn't mean it the same way evangelicals do. Those aren't misunderstandings, they are real differences of faith. As a Romney-backing Evangelical told me in October, "Some of my people — a lot of them — are just never going to go there."

And that brings up another crucial difference between Romney's predicament and Kennedy's. You could call it the fervor gap. Like the Southern Baptists, Mormons are a professing religion: they want to spread the word, win converts, save souls. This isn't a problem for a lot of Americans. But it is a problem for many conservative Christians. Many of them believe that if the GOP nominates Romney — much less if the country elects him as President — Mormons will gain a stronger hand in the all-important business of saving souls. To them, the stakes of that struggle are as great or greater than any fight about a political office.
 
Whoops.

Romney fires landscapers over immigration concerns

Story Highlights
* Romney: Company's failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable
* Romney says the owner guaranteed him he would only hire legal workers
* Campaign: Information indicates the company continues to employ illegal workers
* Immigration reform is a major topic in the race for the Republican nomination

(CNN) -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Tuesday fired a landscaping company that worked at his home in Boston, Massachusetts, after he said he learned it employs illegal immigrants.

"I am disappointed that our relationship must end on this note," Romney wrote in a letter to the company that was released by his campaign.

"But we simply cannot tolerate your inability to ensure that your employees are legally permitted to work in the United States."

With the former Massachusetts governor locked in a tight race for the top spot in the GOP's upcoming Iowa caucuses, the company -- which Romney said he gave a "second chance" after similar concerns arose last year -- had become an easy target for his political opponents.

"The company's failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable, and I believe it is important I take this action," Romney said in a written statement.

Romney said he met with the owner of the Community Lawn Service last year and agreed to keep using it after the owner guaranteed him he would only hire legal workers.

Tuesday's announcement came after the Boston Globe approached the campaign with what an official called "credible information" that the company continued to employ illegal workers -- including some at the Romney home.

Immigration reform is a major topic in the race for the Republican nomination, with candidates working to position themselves as tough on workers entering the country illegally.

During a CNN/YouTube debate last week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani attacked Romney for living in a "sanctuary mansion" where illegal immigrants were allowed to work. VideoWatch the Giuliani-Romney exchange »

Romney clarified that it was the company, not him, that hired the workers and called it "offensive" to suggest he should have checked their immigration status.

"Are you suggesting ... that if you have a company that you hired to provide a service that you are now responsible for going out and checking the employees of that company, particularly those that might look different or don't have an accent like yours?" Romney said during the debate. "I don't think that's American."

On Tuesday, the Giuliani campaign said "the Romney statement speaks for itself" and offered no further comment.
 
A huge endorsement:

Saturday, December 15, 2007
Judge Bork Endorses Mitt Romney
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 1:21 PM

Patrick's post below notes that everyone's got a story to tell about how they could win, but Romney's second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire, ahead in Wyoming, ahead among Republicans in Michigan, and a close second in Florida.

Romney picked up the endorsement of National Review this week, and today announced Judge Bork's endorsement. Romney sits down opposite Tim Russert tomorrow with cash, organization, first or second standing in all of the early primaries, endorsed this week by two of the biggest names in the conservative movement.

Nothing is certain in politics, but Romney is holding the strongest hand by far as the Christmas season largely pushes politics from voter's attention until January 3.

Looking back at 2007, Romney played the long campaign best of all of the candidates.

To dispute Patrick's analysis of Rudy's woes just a bit, my guess is that Romney's voters overwhelmingly favor Rudy as their second choice. (Any pointers to polling on this would be useful, especially in Florida where Rudy will first benefit if Mitt falters.) Either Romney's strategy of momentum plays out and he enters Florida with the best January record, or the GOP regroups and settles on Rudy.

There is no way John McCain will ever recover the trust of the GOP. The boomlet in New Hampshire and Michigan reflects those primaries openness to independents, but you can't win the nomination without the base, and Senator McCain alienated it with McCain-Feingold, angered it with the Gang of 14, and permanently split with it over the September 2006 derailment of the Senate GOP's plans on a number of fronts and then the McCain-Kennedy attempted jam down on immigration reform. The trouble with pundits pumping Senator McCain is that they don't remember what GOP voters remember, and they remember that Senator McCain --always steadfast on the war-- was a maverick on everything else.
asset_upload_file915_12260.jpg
 
hugh hewitt has a HUGE mancrush on Mitt.

and i find it amazing that HH states that McCain lost the base because he opposes torture. good for McCain. christians for waterboarding? perhaps just some of the integrity he lost bending over for Bush in 2004 has been regained.
 
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Diemen said:
How is Bork a "huge endorsement" for Romney?

In conservative circles, Judge Bork is an Icon, cpl his endorsement with that of the National Review, well it's almost a fraction of Chuck Norris' endorsement of Huck I suppose.:sexywink:

dbs
 
I liked McCain-Feingold. Something has to be done about the amount of money being spent in campaigns. The campaign season is way too long, too. Now McCain's on the ropes. Romney is leading in all of those polls, and Huckabee is doing very well, too. These endorsements aren't hurting Romney. But Bork's endorsement is "huge"? The guy couldn't get confirmed to the Supreme Court.
 
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diamond said:


In conservative circles, Judge Bork is an Icon,

Given the fact that a large percentage of Bush supporters still believed for a long time that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, I don't think they really know who Bork is...

This isn't huge.
 
gosh, what won't he say?



[q]Romney fields questions on King
Campaign says claim not literal

December 20, 2007

BY TODD SPANGLER

FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he watched his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, in a 1960s civil rights march in Michigan with Martin Luther King Jr.

On Wednesday, Romney's campaign said his recollections of watching his father, an ardent civil rights supporter, march with King were meant to be figurative.

"He was speaking figuratively, not literally," Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said of the candidate.

The campaign was responding to questions raised by the Free Press and other media after a Boston publication challenged the accuracy of Mitt Romney's account.

In a major speech on faith and politics earlier this month in Texas, Mitt Romney said: "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."

He made a similar statement Sunday during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." He said, "You can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mom was a tireless crusader for civil rights."


Romney's campaign cited various historical articles, as well as a 1967 book written by Stephen Hess and Washington Post political columnist David Broder, as confirmation that George Romney marched with King in Grosse Pointe in 1963.

"He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb," Hess and Broder wrote in "The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP."

Free Press archives, however, showed no record of King marching in Grosse Pointe in 1963 or of then-Gov. Romney taking part in King's historic march down Woodward Avenue in June of that year.

George Romney told the Free Press at the time that he didn't take part because it was on a Sunday and he avoided public appearances on the Sabbath because of his religion.

Romney did participate in a civil rights march protesting housing bias in Grosse Pointe just six days after the King march. According to the Free Press account, however, King was not there.


Broder could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

The Boston Phoenix reported Wednesday it could find no evidence that Romney and King ever marched together.

Mitt Romney's older brother, Detroit attorney Scott Romney, said he recalls his father telling him the elder Romney marched with King, possibly in 1963, but he could not remember exactly when the event took place.

Fehrnstrom called the Romney brothers' recollection and the historical materials a "pretty convincing case that George Romney did march with Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders in Michigan."

The governor's record was one of supporting civil rights. He helped create the state's first civil rights commission and marched at the head of a protest parade in Detroit days after violence against civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala., in 1965.

Mitt Romney's campaign planned today to further research George Romney's papers for evidence of his march with King.[/q]
 
A spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Phoenix that George W. Romney and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 -- although possibly not on the same day or in the same city.

:lmao:

Romney is so shameless, it's hilarious!
 
i've been to the Civil Rights museum. so i was with MLK in that hotel room when he was shot.

it was an early morning, if i remember correctly ...
 
The governor's record was one of supporting civil rights. He helped create the state's first civil rights commission and marched at the head of a protest parade in Detroit days after violence against civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala., in 1965.

This part's actually pretty good for a Mormon in those days. Considering that blacks weren't even allowed in the same levels of heaven until very recently.
 
I love Grosse Point Blank......

Speaking of blank.......

Apparently the evidence of his recollection is drawing one.
 
kids, i think we can all agree that George Romney and MLK were both alive in 1963.

isn't that enough?

(but, to be fair, Romney the elder's record on civil rights is exemplary for the era, Mormon or otherwise)
 
Irvine511 said:


(but, to be fair, Romney the elder's record on civil rights is exemplary for the era, Mormon or otherwise)

yes the elder
may be a much better man

he was doing ok as a GOP candidate in 68
then he went to Viet Nam
came home and told the truth (much like Ron Paul on Iraq)

well, after that
the guy was toast
 
New Hampshire paper: Romney 'must be stopped'

Story Highlights
The Concord Monitor editorial calls former Gov. Mitt Romney "a phony"
It slams Romney for flip-flopping
It says Romney once supported stem-cell research and now opposes it
It claims Romney is dodging the issue of torture

(CNN) -- In unusually stark language, the newspaper in New Hampshire's capital calls former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney "a phony" and tells its readers Sunday that he "most surely must be stopped" in next month's first-in-the-nation primary.

The Concord Monitor published an editorial slamming the GOP presidential candidate for flip-flopping on issues. It also criticized him for his central-casting appearance.

With "an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit" along with "a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government experience" Romney espouses "some old GOP bromides -- spending cuts and lower taxes -- plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith," the editorial says.

The Concord Monitor editorial page is considered to be liberal.

But Romney's record makes him "a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped," the editorial added.

It compared Romney's stances as governor of Massachusetts with those taken as a presidential candidate and found glaring differences. Watch Romney shake hands and chat with voters in New Hampshire »

"If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats," it said. Read the editorial

"If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you're left to wonder if there's anything at all at his core."

The editorial then cited Romney's advocacy of gay rights in 1994, when he was running against Sen. Edward Kennedy for the U.S. Senate, and compared that with his current stance.

"These days, he makes a point of his opposition to gay marriage and adoption," it said.

It said Romney once sought to make contraceptive drugs more available, then vetoed a bill that would have allowed them to be sold over-the-counter.

Romney told voters he favored abortion rights in 1994, the editorial said, "and he cited the tragedy of a relative's botched illegal abortion as the reason to keep abortions safe and legal."

Today, it said, he describes himself as "pro-life."

Though Romney once supported embryonic stem-cell research, "these days, he largely opposes it," according to the editorial.

When he was running for governor, Romney rejected an anti-tax pledge "as a gimmick," the editors said. "In this race, he was the first to sign."

The editors acknowledged that people can change, but they said Romney "has yet to explain this particular set of turnarounds in a way that convinces voters they are based on anything other than his own ambition."

The editorial then took Romney to task about torture, saying "he dodges the issue ... unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won't do it."

And it called "chilling" Romney's statement that he would like to double the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, which has held terrorist suspects for years without charges.

"When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney," the editorial said. "If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.

"Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no."

Asked to respond, a campaign spokesman for Romney for President did not specifically address any of the issues raised by the board.

Instead, Kevin Madden said, "The Monitor's editorial board is regarded as a liberal one on many issues, so it is not surprising that they would criticize Gov. Romney for his conservative views and platform.

"Gov. Romney has taken firm positions that are at odds with the board's support for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, their position against school choice and their advocacy for taking 'Under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance. The governor happens to disagree with them on all those issues."
 
He is a phony, they're right on the money with that one

lol@ Reaganesque hair. My hairstylist's sister owns a salon where he has had his hair done, I didn't want to know anything else after that. She did say the family is nice. And no diamond, you can't come over and watch him get it done and collect his hair from the floor.
 
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