A “Stop Romney” Effort After Iowa?
Dear readers:
This will be a fast-moving, often-changing story over the next five days (five days!) between now and the New Hampshire primary election. We’ll try to follow the important developments, and so should you.
Reports are that a group of “conservative elites” is meeting in Texas “to huddle to stop Mitt Romney.”
A group of movement conservatives has called an emergency meeting in Texas next weekend to find a “consensus” Republican presidential hopeful, POLITICO has learned.
“You and your spouse are cordially invited to a private meeting with national conservative leaders of faith at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler near Brenham, Texas, with the purpose of attempting to unite and to come to a consensus on which Republican presidential candidate or candidates to support, or which not to support,” read an invitation that is making its way into in-boxes Wednesday morning.
The meeting is being hosted by such prominent conservative figures as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Don Wildmon, onetime chairman of the American Family Association; and Gary Bauer, himself a former presidential candidate….
Movement conservatives are concerned that a vote split between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum among base voters could enable Mitt Romney to grab the GOP nomination. A source who shared the invitation said the meeting was about how to avoid such a possibility….
If Republicans are going to put up a “pro-family conservative against Mitt Romney, some decisions need to be made,” [former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaatts],told reporters at a Santorum rally.
This has a certain odor to it, especially in light of the key players identified. James Dobson, Don Wildmon, Gary Bauer — Evangelicals all. Wildmon has been strident in his opposition to Romney. Dobson has been famously wishy-washy and in thrall to his base– but that may have changed now that he has retired and no longer needs their financial support. (Or does he?)
For his part, Gary Bauer says the Texas meeting “was not intended to be a strategy session for how to take down Romney,” and that he will drop out of the event if he turned out to be wrong about its purpose.
Not all invitees agree with Bauer, however:
One conservative who was invited, though, said [stopping Romney] was exactly what the group ought to be doing.
“It’s what they should have done in 2008 with McCain, but they were too weak,” complained this conservative.
This meeting requires very close scrutiny. If this group is out to “stop the Mormon,” that purpose ought to be out in the open for all to see.
John Joins…
It will be very interesting to see if this veers off after Perry has announced he is still in. Vander Plaats is also an anti-Mormon type of those cited.
The biggest problem we have right now is telling the difference between anti-Mormon sentiment and simple anti-Romney sentiment and how they relate. The left, which wants to delegitimize religion generally, thinks it’s all about religion – examples here and here. Conservatives, not wanting to appear religiously bigoted, say it is about “genuine conservatism” – example here. Really smart lefties are playing into the later because they want Obama re-elected more than anything else.
But there are some things that are increasingly hard to understand. The professionals, Karl Rove chief among them, now think Romney is going to be very hard to beat in the primary. If that is indeed the case, and they are the best there are at this kind of stuff, why does there even need to be a question asked about whom to support? When a winner becomes apparent, you back the winner because that is how you can be most effective at making gains with your particular agenda. And that is true even if you do not agree entirely with the apparent winner, if your agenda matters most to you – then you go where you can make your agenda matter. So, at this point, if they want to stop Romney, then that must be their most pressing agenda item – why?
Some argue that in Iowa “Family values” is code for “Christian values.“ And it would appear that such code excludes individuals with the same values, but different theology. Santorum won the rural areas and Romney the cities; the data are now in. Santorum, as I predicted, took the vast majority of the Evangelical vote. Position by position, there is little difference between Santorum and Romney – save two. Romney is so much better organized and so much better funded that there is no comparison. That translates into electability. And then there is the matter of ecclesiastical affiliation. Even if no one will say it out loud, the statistics speak volumes. And draw ridicule:
Has there ever been a clearer gap between a candidate’s claim of a divine call toward politics and Michele Bachmann’s speech on Wednesday ending her race for the GOP presidential nomination?
She started with a long list of arguments against the healthcare reform law (several of which had long ago failed muster against actual facts.) She added a smidge of humility of the sort not generally found among active candidates. (“And so last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside.”)
And then there was this clear nod to her faith: “I look forward to the next chapter in God’s plan. He has one for each of us, you know. If we will only cooperate with him, he always had something greater around the corner — far beyond what any of us have ever thought or imagined.”
But she seemed far less uncertain about God’s plan for her when she entered the race. Ditto for her fellow failed (or nearly failed) candidates Herman Cain and Rick Perry. And for the latest non-Romney favorite, Rick Santorum.
Cast your eyes back to 2006 when Bachmann said: “God then called me to run for the United States Congress.” And then last year, just before starting her presidential campaign: “It means I have a sense of assurance about the direction I think that God is speaking into my heart that I should go.”
This does nothing but discredit the voice of faith in the public square – it portrays a God of steadfastness and reason as one of capricious whim. If we are to prevail in the real battles ahead, we can ill afford such portrayals. I find it fascinating that the follower of the faith MOST steeped in direct deistic revelation is making no claims to such when so many of his opponents are.
Same-sex marriage, the current most active battlefront, looks to get much more active. We are doing stupid things on that battlefront and sometimes we get what we deserve, but forget how high the stakes really are – From Robert George:
One of my superstar former students, writing about his experience at one of our nation’s premier law schools, sent me a note after reading my MOJ post on marriage, religious liberty, and the “grand bargain.” Here is the text, with names removed to protect the innocent:
I had a first-hand experience with this reality in law school. One of my constitutional law professors taught the section of our course relating to same-sex marriage under the “inevitability” banner. I met with him in office hours later to talk to him about something else, but I brought up a question that I have been wrestling with: if the SSM advocates are right and opposition to SSM becomes analogous to racism in our society, what will happen to Catholics and others whose views on SSM cannot and will not change? Are they to be excluded from public office, political and judicial appointments, or places of trust and responsibility within private institutions (e.g., law firm partnerships)? I posed the question to him because I was curious to hear his response, since he is generally a kind and reasonable person who seemed open to other viewpoints.
His response was very disappointing, and it shook my confidence in him. He responded to me by saying something along the lines of: “Well, they [Catholics and others] will either have to change their views or be treated in the same way that white supremacists and the segregationist Senators were treated. They were excluded from the judiciary entirely for decades because of the South’s views on race.”
The stakes are as high as they come. The agitation for precisely those stakes is upon us. The Republican nominee now appears very likely, very likely indeed, to be Mitt Romney. He won the most religiously tinged, save perhaps South Carolina, primary in the nation. The voters get it. We cannot let our theological differences keep us from winning the big fight. That means we have to concentrate on electability and not theology. A theology fight weakens our nominee, regardless of who that might be. If the smart people think that nominee is Romney, the choice is most apparent. Anything else and we, as they say, “Cut off our nose to spite our face.”
John Mark here:
For those wondering how traditional Christians will be treated in the future, I urge you to Google Santorum’s name. Santorum doesn’t deserve to be President for the hate he has received, but he deserves our thanks for putting up with it.
Meanwhile, he has too little money, too much baggage (those Senate votes! that election loss!), and a generally prickly personality.
Why not support Romney? There are good reasons not to do so, I suppose, but bad ones too. When a thoughtful blogger like Andrew Sullivan calls a man “weird,” then he is giving a dog whistle to hate. Don’t believe me? Read the comment sections on blogs that quote Sullivan. Mormon doctrine as “weird” will come up quickly. Reading Sullivan himself daily is a good corrective to the notion that Romney is a “liberal” or a RINO. (Sullivan is a man of the right in some ways with a rootless morality, but he is always interesting.)
A few conservatives that voted for Obama retain an interest in being vindicated. They thought the GOP was going into the wilderness and they are in denial that the party is about to (again) nominate an acceptable center-right candidate and has a better than even chance of winning with Romney this fall.
If Romney picks a “Rubio-type,” then he can bet conservatives will come home.
It is false that seventy-five percent of the party has rejected Romney. He is perfectly acceptable to the vast majority of the party, but in a multiple candidate field they have rightly looked around. Why settle quickly when Romney is always there? Maybe somebody better is out there . . . but polls show they are going to vote for Romney if he is the nominee.
Here is a wild prediction: well over 1/4 of New Hampshire will vote for Romney, but it will be dismissed as his “nearly home state.” Sure. That is why McCain won there in 2008.
Romney will be the nominee. The “leaders” meeting to stop him are unknown (or nearly so) to my Evangelical students. They would have to engage in political necromancy to bring back long departed voters that would hear their own dog whistles. Just as zombie-Reagan is not going to run, so the zombie-Religious Right cannot be invoked.
Evangelicals under fifty are conservative . . . they are pro-life and pro-marriage, but they are not “led” by the men meeting in Texas. Romney gained almost a fifth of Iowa Evangelicals, after all in a split field. Real Evangelicals will rally around Romney as the field settles.
UPDATE BY JOHN 5 HOURS AFTER INITIAL PUBLICATION: Looks like this thing is not pulling the kind of energy hoped for:
Two prominent leaders of conservative organizations have confirmed they are not attending and several others are expressing concern that nothing substantial or productive will come from the gathering.
“I understand the importance of discussing how we must energize and mobilize our base, but I believe the process of getting behind a consensus candidate will take care of itself. That’s what elections are for,” noted one invitee who asked not to be identified. “I just don’t think we’ll be able to agree on any one candidate at this time.”
Maybe someone read my comments above?
Posted in Latest News, Prejudice, Religious Bigotry | 16 Comments » | 
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CarlH on 05 Jan 2012 at 9:40 am #
Jason Horowitz wrote the following, pre-Iowa (1/2/12), for the WaPo’s PostPolitics page:
Romney’s religion still a sticking point
The article was applauded yesterday (for the journalism, supposedly) at GetReligion because the GR poster felt that Horowitz focused on the theological questions that Evangelical voters have about Romney’s being a Mormon, and dismissing the notion of “bigotry” raised by a Romney supporter Conspicuously absent from the GR discussion was any discussion of why the theology should matter politically at all. The article doesn’t completely dodge that issue, but not in a way that demonstrates that it is “theology” and not “bigotry” that is the problem. One source is quoted as saying she is worried more by Mormons than Muslims (but of course there is no Muslim candidate in the race) apparently because:
But she was also being interviewed at a Romney event and afterwards said she could vote for Romney if he were the nominee.
CarlH on 05 Jan 2012 at 9:53 am #
I belatedly realized that I missed an important segue in the Get Religion post referenced above. It was not the Horowitz piece that was praised at GR (which in fact was criticized for NOT discussing the theological issues Evangelicals have with Mormons). What was applauded was this piece written by Daniel Burke for the Religion New Service:
Mitt Romney’s evangelical problem starts with theology
The focus is entirely theology, but despite the headline the only discussion of why these theological differences seem to matter so much for many Evangelical voters (and some who want to direct their political choices) is this:
The final sentence of that quote pretty much leaves me speechless.
fitzwdarcey on 05 Jan 2012 at 10:11 am #
What about the Judy Manning comment about her concern regarding Romney’s Mormonism but that it was at least better than Muslim?
I am sure Gingrich didn’t know about this right away, but how long until he knows about it and is choosing to overlook it now that he has gone full Captain Ahab?
fitzwdarcey on 05 Jan 2012 at 10:22 am #
An addition only to explain that I think there is the possibility that a narrative is coming that Romney can’t win in the South and therefore is not as electable as he seems. I’m not sure why else Gingrich would use geographical terms in differentiating the two, Romney is a “Massachusetts moderate whereas I am a southern conservative.” I think the emphasis is there to remind those in the South of all of their discomforts with Romney and to remind them, hey I am one of you. When you add in Rep. Manning’s comments, you cover both regional differences and religious differences. This Texas meeting only makes me more suspicious that this is coming.
sewinglady on 05 Jan 2012 at 10:37 am #
Hearing about this “stop Romney” meeting in Texas gives me the creeps. I agree that the line between religious bias and “not Romney” bias is pretty thin. Of course, you also have the “He’s a Yankee” bias that happens in the South and more folksy places where Huck was a lock.
Still, as a member of the CJCLDS, this type of meeting makes me nervous. Let’s have a secret meeting comprised of people who, codeword, “think like us” but really mean “worship like us or believe like us,” to try to stop someone who doesn’t worship like us but is far smarter, more Presidential, and better organized than anyone we can produce. It sounds kind of like the letter written to John McCain signed by all those evangelicals in 2008, trying to ensure that Romney didn’t make it on the ticket. When the economy melted down in a big way, how did that turn out for us? I am not saying that John McCain didn’t choose Romney because of threats from the evangelical community, but I believe that having Romney on the ticket would have strengthened John McCain when the economy melted down in a way that having Sarah Palin on the ticket did not.
I hope that these efforts will not prevail against the candidate who is best prepared to run the country!
squidmark on 05 Jan 2012 at 12:16 pm #
It’s amazing to me that a voting block that has rushed from Palin to Bachmann to Cain to Perry to Gingrich to Santorum could ever accuse Romney of flip-flopping.
It’s just as amazing to me that, “Republicans are going to put up a “pro-family conservative against Mitt Romney” by turning to . . . Newt Gingrich??????
What’s that line? The only way to get Newt to leave the GOP field is to diagnose the GOP field with cancer?
kgbudge on 05 Jan 2012 at 4:50 pm #
I found this from Santorum’s comments on the outcome disquieting:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-iowa-caucuses-photo-quotes,0,7478579.photogallery
That’s awfully close to claiming God’s endorsement.
trvalletta on 05 Jan 2012 at 7:16 pm #
As usual, excellent article today. It is disappointing to see the constant barrage of anti-Romney rhetoric, so much of it from pundits that I once respected. Many of the candidates touted by some of these once respected pundits have many more conservative apostasies, and are far from ideologically pure, yet Romney alone is their punching bag. For example, how could Limbaugh feel so much disdain for Romney and yet find Gingrich perfectly acceptable?
Retrocon on 05 Jan 2012 at 10:35 pm #
Squidmark nails it on how the voters are flipping and flopping, but left out a name: Donald Trump. That Trump ever enjoyed serious consideration by anyone for the presidency of the United States shows how unpegged the Conservative movement has become, where principles are malleable as long as the individual speaks with the new heightened rhetoric and partisanship of the day.
While Rush Limbaugh did not endorse anyone in 2008, he did pronounce a blessing on Romney as probably being the one who best combined “the three legs of the conservative stool”. Now Rush refers to Romney as a dry-ball moderate. So what happened, did Romney lurch to the left? Or did Rush and a large segment of those caught up in the new-found political movements lurch somewhere from which all they could see was to “defeat the Democrats” — with impunity. And looking back at Romney, seeing that Romney had not lurched with them, he suddenly wasn’t “conservative enough” anymore. So who’s the steady one?
Retrocon on 05 Jan 2012 at 11:41 pm #
What’s one of the oft repeated mantras of the conservative populists? That they don’t want the media to tell them who their nominee should be. Or they don’t want the establishment pundits to tell them who to vote for, or who should be the nominee. How often have we heard this from Rush and Laura Ingraham and every third caller who they put on their radio shows?
Yet a large group of voters have demonstrated they don’t know how to vote until someone tells them how to vote. Did anyone notice Sarah Palin coming out the day before the Iowa Caucus telling people not to vote for Michele Bachmann (“it’s not her time”). It is quite telling that Palin would do this.
Both Gingrich and Santorum had done reasonably well in the debates from the beginning, yet neither was anyone’s first choice it seemed. It was as if that group of voters kept looking into a large tank of fish, trying to decide who was best to scoop out. They pulled out Bachmann, somewhat timidly, then saw Perry in the water and quickly threw Bachmann aside to grab Perry, who had just mocked up a big prayer rally. But when Perry flopped they looked back in the tank, deciding on Cain, because he was a businessman and an outsider — yeah, that’s what we need. But when Cain slipped, they had to go back to the tank. Hmm, Santorum? Gingrich? Let’s pick Gingrich. He’s really smart and would be great in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Obama — and he knows his way around Washington, yeah, that’s what we need. But what about Newt’s personal baggage? Well, um, haven’t you heard about redemption? He’s changed, don’t you know, and isn’t redemption what we church-goers are all about? It’s my religious duty to support Gingrich — or else I might be accused of being judgmental. Of course, Gingrich really was hard to swallow, and when voters were reminded about him, it became hard to justify continued support, especially for the leaders in the prominent evangelical groups. Is anyone left in the tank? Oh yeah, Santorum. The fish no one really wanted, for some reason. But when Bob Vander Plaats and Rush and the others propped him up, the voters felt they had cover. They were told it was OK to vote for Santorum. He was hard working, steady, good on the social issues… nevermind he was the only fish left in the tank. We were able to pull him out just in time to be our champion in Iowa.
But everyone knows, whether they will admit it publicly or not, that Santorum never had fired anyone up. He had always been resident on the far outskirts of the debate stage. Hence the panicked quandary that stop-Romney voters find themselves in.
coltakashi on 06 Jan 2012 at 8:55 am #
The Iowa caucus vote is not really determinative or predictive of the Republican nominee, let alone who will be president after November. It is a media event an order of magnitude larger than the televised debates.
Realizing that they are participating in an exercise that is more akin to American Idol than a real election, many Iowa caucus participants have decided not to focus on the question of who the Republican Party should be represented by in November, and instead use this as an opportunity to “send a message”, like a card formation in the seats of a football stadium at a Hawkeyes game.
The polls show that the participants actually concerned with beating Obama in November planned to vote for Romney by 48%. A high school civics student will have been taught that this focus is the entire purpose for holding a primary vote affecting the nomination, but instead many Iowa caucus voters were more concerned with a cheering contest to push for the victory of Team Social Conservatism, or Team Libertarian.
The other 49 states sort of assumed that Iowa was the first real season game on the road to the November Presidential Super Bowl, but most Iowans were playing another game entirely.
chuby2 on 06 Jan 2012 at 10:08 am #
I’m not worried about his being a Mormon !
I’m worried about his name included with those that are alleged to have money in the “Vatican slush fund”
Can anyone point us to accurate reliable information on the Vatican slush fund scandal ?
Spence on 06 Jan 2012 at 1:19 pm #
C’mon John Mark about calling Santorum’s Senate loss “baggage.” Santorum bagged a lot of votes from registered Democrats through the years. Being from West Virginia you should know breaking out in that environment is tough for a Republican to begin with. Perhaps if Santorum “moderated” or practised ideological yoga stretches he would have been able to entrench himself. Anyway I bet that loss humbled him in ways that only major losses can do. It is remarkable that we are even discussing him.
The thought of a first generation American becoming President gives me a tingle up my leg. Santorum’s story inspires me, not to mention his wife’s biography.
I thought only Democrats fall in love!
Doug King on 06 Jan 2012 at 5:48 pm #
Kudos to Retrocon for this zinger: “…they don’t want the media to tell them who their nominee should be… Yet a large group of voters have demonstrated they don’t know how to vote until someone tells them how to vote.”
I don’t think we have a “weak field of candidates” as some say. I think we have a fractured GOP coalition, and traditional Republicans struggle to make up their minds. The self-insulating affect of internet and talk radio has taken its toll isolating and pitting conservatives against each other, while at the same time inflating expectations to mythical proportions (i.e., waiting for the next Ronald Reagan). I’m frustrated by the relative scarcity of rational thought among conservatives. This post from Dalrymple provides insight into some of the unreasonable people who try to co-opt political dialog for other purposes. (I only hope the internet exaggerates their influence and that a reasonable “silent majority” will ultimately prevail in the election.)
The GOP needs to nominate a fiscal centrist who appeals to conservatives and independents and choose a VP who appeals to social conservatives. Time will tell who wins the nomination, but I think Romney fits the bill as the centrist. I worry the primary will be so decisive the GOP will have a hard time uniting.
IMHO, this election is do-or-die for Republicans, regardless of nominee. If the GOP loses to liberal Obama who presides over this pathetic economy, the Democrats will appear invincible, and traditionalists will leave the GOP in droves. The party will wither and die like the Whigs and Federalists.
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