Speech Reaction Commentary
I find myself with some time in the airport prior to returning to sunny SoCal so I have done a quick read through of the reaction pieces. You will find almost all of them listed, as we have done all week, in the blue box in the sidebar. Though not available at press time for this post, the video of the speech will appear in “Straight From The Source” in the red box on the right very soon, along with initial commentary from Lowell and me just minutes after the speech.
Most of the pieces that have been written to the moment have been pretty factual retellings of the event with extensive quotations. When it is up, check the STFS post which will link to the speech text if you would prefer to read rather than watch.
My own reaction remains the same as my initial: “presidential.” He simply raised the bar for religion and this campaign. Anyone that now runs based on a religious identity of any sort will appear close-minded and foolish. It is just that simple.
CNN Airport is blaring in my ear as I write and Wolf Blitzer is busy wondering if Romney actually got the job done since he mentioned “Mormon” only once. And yet, the CNN piece posted on the speech quotes Bill Bennett:
CNN contributor Bill Bennett said he wasn’t sure Romney addressed the concerns voters might have with Mormonism, but, he added, “I don’t think he had to.”
Mona Charen reports on some reader emails:
. . . People are saying it was a good speech. And it was a good speech. The question is was it the speech Romney needed to make? Did it accomplish what it needed to accomplish? Time will tell, but as an evangelical I didn’t feel that any of my concerns about Romney were addressed.
Which is a sign that some voters don’t get it. But Hugh Hewitt addressed such people:
Did Romney convert anti-Mormon fanatics or secular absolutists? Of course not, but they are very few, though the latter are extremely overrepresented in elite media newsrooms, as I argued on CNN International just after the speech, when the anchors immediately wanted to turn to whether the LDS segregation of priesthood until 1978 would hurt Romney.
Romney’s goal was not to win over such people, because, as Hugh notes, he does not need them. His goal today was to clarify the fog of punditry, “news,” whisperings, and flat out rumor. He appealed to the vast majority of Americans of faith that also understand the proper role of religion in political consideration. He did that, and more. In the effort he clearly separated himself from the rest of the field for whom faith is in play as the only one that is really presidential.
Two final comments. First, Michael Luo at the NYTimes cannot help but draw a labored comparison to JFK.
Mr. Romney’s address today, however, differed significantly from that signal moment in recent history, which historians say was a turning point in the 1960 election. For one thing, Kennedy later took questions hurled at him from the ministers, many of them hostile, while Mr. Romney spoke before a friendly audience whose front row included four of his five sons and his wife, Ann, as well as many people affiliated with the campaign.
This will, in the next few days go from a tired meme to simply boring and pointless. To all those planning such pieces, HANG IT UP!
Finally, Andrew Sullivan does what I have been predicting all along:
The second flaw is that he simply cannot elide the profound theological differences between the LDS church and mainstream Christianity. Since I’m a secularist – a Christian secularist – this doesn’t make a difference to me. But if you are appealing to religious people, especially fundamentalists, on the basis of faith, you cannot logically then ask them to ignore the content of the faith. The religious right have tried to do this with the absurd neologism, the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” as if the truth-claims of Christianity and Judaism are not, at bottom, contradictory. But the “Mormon-Judeo-Christian tradition” is a step too far even for those who have almost no principles in using religion for political purposes.
I think it’s a tragedy that a man of Romney’s obvious gifts should be reduced to this. But he asked for it; and the petard he has been hoist on is his own. If you want a religious politics, you’ll end up with one. That’s why Huckabee is the natural heir to the Rove project. And why Romney is falling behind.
Romney and this issue is a hammer that will be used to beat on the Christian Right by the left over and over and over again. With this speech, with its masterful authorship and its presidential delivery, has drawn a line in the sand for the religious right. It has said, if you do not vote for me on the basis of my faith, you are the one that risks sounding like a fanatic. You are the one that runs the risk of being considered on the fringe.
There will be much more to come, but it is now time to get on the airplane.
Posted in Candidate Qualifications, News Media Bias, Political Strategy, The Speech | 1 Comment » | 
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ComMITTed to Romney! » Reaction on 06 Dec 2007 at 7:15 pm #
[...] Article 6 “…CNN Airport is blaring in my ear as I write and Wolf Blitzer is busy wondering if Romney actually got the job done since he mentioned “Mormon” only once… (what a great way of measuring success!)”… [...]