Evangelicals Hate Mitt Romney (Rightfully So)

Posted by Brad , Sadly, No! at 8:00 AM on July 30, 2008.

Oh Jesus, she's at it again:

Deja Vu [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

This makes me primary mad all over again:

Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens.

They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon. Opposition is particularly powerful among those who supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year.

"McCain and Romney would be like oil and water," said evangelical novelist Tim LaHaye, who supported Mr. Huckabee. "We aren't against Mormonism, but Romney is not a thoroughgoing evangelical and his flip-flopping on issues is understandable in a liberal state like Massachusetts, but our people won't understand that."

I started to get intense anti-Romney e-mail again a few weeks ago, when I wrote this anti-Huckabee column. When it comes to Romney, there is almost a religious fervor opposing him, despite a record of helping social conservatism in recent years.

"Almost" a religious fervor? Uh, no, K-Lo. It is literally a religious fervor.

See, right-wing Evangelicals maybe cuckoo for Coco Puffs, but they aren't nearly as stupid as you are. They know that Bush and the GOP have used them for money and votes while not lifting a damn finger to seriously help their causes. Consider the GOP's track record on law-breaking: they've been perfectly willing to break laws against torture and warrantless wiretapping, but they didn't lift a damn finger to send in the National Guard to replace Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Priorities, people!

So yes: for all their craziness, the Christian Right will only eat so many platefuls of shit. And in Mitt Romney, they correctly see a dung heap the size of a large walrus.

Continuing:

I honestly don't know why someone so successful would feel the need to continue play-acting, faking his way through conservatism just to be John McCain's vice president (I find it hard to believe conservatives will ever get enthused in 2012 by someone who was a part of the McCain administration) or, worse, John McCain's running mate on a losing ticket.

I mean, right? Why indeed would Romney want to deceive people about his true nature just to up his chances of getting a piddling, dead-end job like the vice president of the United States? After all, look at how unhappy Dick Cheney seems to be -- when he's not spending all his time cooped up in his undisclosed location, the poor guy is reduced to getting wasted and shooting his friends in the face with birdshot. Not to mention the poor guy's pet project of invading Iran seems to be going nowhere. Who on Earth would want such a tedious and thankless job?

Mitt Romney is an example of someone who came to the wisdom of conservatism through practical experience. He saw its reasonableness in the face of liberal overreach. We should want to embrace such conversions. We should want to encourage people to get Right.

Or we can fervently close the door to them and their contributions and fresh blood. What a good move for a movement that needs re-energization and recruits.

Mitt Romney is an example of someone who is stunningly and embarrassingly full of shit, even by the standards of modern politicians. The fact that he has failed to pass the smell test of notoriously gullible crackpots such as Tim Lahaye shows that his hangers-on are the very dimmest of bulbs. K-Lo, congratulations.

Tagged as: evangelicals, conservatives, mitt romney, massachusetts, kathryn jean lopez

Brad is a regular blogger for Sadly No!.