Stuff your Tolerance

Huckabee 39, Romney 17 --Newsweek

I understand this poll now. Will write it up later. But everybody knows that if you're going to explain your faith you've got to talk about your faith. When people at the beginning of the week learned that Romney was going to talk about "religious liberty" they knew he was going to scam them. That's the immense problem with him in the first place, that he's not genuine, that he's always pulling a fast one, that he can't be trusted. They had a week of that being advertised: "I'm going to scam you." So they thought about it and the numbers changed; 8% moved from Romney, because they couldn't support him any longer, and possibly others supporting Thompson moved to Huckabee because they wanted to be certain to beat Mitt. --Sounds reasonable to me.


Nice Newsweek Iowa poll.
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/12/ia_poll_huckabee_dominating.html

It was conducted the 5th and 6th. Romney gave his speech the morning of the 6th. Some of those polled would have heard the speech, all would have been hearing all week that he was going to be making it. Nice results. Huckabee 39, Romney 17. That sure fits nicely with my own prejudice. Two months ago Huck had 6%...The day before the speech Zogby had Huck 24, Romney 25. Different polls of course, but I like the sweep of the numbers.

Jay Cost has done the best comment on the speech (my opinion).
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/on_romneys_speech.html

I quote:

The speech I would like to have seen would connect his religion to his particular political beliefs in a way that his rhetoric has been implying for a year. For instance, Mormons believe in the preexistence of the soul. They believe that families are divinely and infinitely connected. It seems to me that this forms a very sound basis for his pro-life and pro-family views. The voters he is courting are responding with questions about his beliefs. Why not answer them? He just finished saying that they are good, tolerant folk. He wants their votes. What's to fear? It seems to me to that the best antiseptic for the religious intolerance Romney fears is fresh air. He should bring his beliefs into the open -- proudly and forthrightly. Explain how they connect to his politics. Tell anybody who won't vote for him because of it that he doesn't want their votes, anyway!

The contrast to Romney is George W. Bush -- whose 2000 campaign is pretty clearly the model for Romney's. In 2000, Bush ran as the electable social conservative: he felt as passionately about these issues as Christian conservative voters did, and -- unlike Keyes or Bauer -- he could actually be elected. Romney is trying to do exactly the same. But Bush did something that Romney has so far refused to do. He explained himself to the voters. He gave them some of the particulars of the faith that informed those beliefs. He did not say much -- but he communicated to voters why he took the positions he did. They were convictions, rooted in his personal conversion to Christ after years of indulgence. Romney, on the other hand, adopts all of the positions that Bush adopted, has the same vim, uses the same language -- but won't explain why.

I am not arguing that government should be able to thwart the people's will and bar a duly elected person from taking office based upon his religious beliefs. I am arguing, however, that voters can vote for a person for whatever reason they choose. Furthermore, I am arguing that a candidate who has intentionally wooed a group of religious voters based upon a set of issue positions whose origin usually comes from a particular set of religious beliefs should not be surprised that the courtship breaks down because he refuses to detail his beliefs. Nor, for that matter, can he make implicit or explicit reference to bigotry as the explanation for the failed courtship.

And Lee Harris for TCS Daily has a nice article.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=120707A

I like the title: "How and Why Romney Bombed", and I like this line: "The question of who we prefer to lead us has nothing to do with the question of who we are willing to tolerate", the best single line from all the analysis I've read. From this paragraph:

The Christian evangelicals who are troubled by Romney's candidacy do not pose a threat to the American principle of religious tolerance. On the contrary, they are prepared to tolerate Mormons in their society, just as they are prepared to tolerate atheists and Jews, Muslims and Hindus. No evangelical has said, "Romney should not be permitted to run for the Presidency because he is a Mormon." None has moved to have a constitutional amendment forbidding the election of a Mormon to the Presidency. That obviously would constitute religious intolerance, and Romney would have every right to wax indignant about it. But he has absolutely no grounds for raising the cry of religious intolerance simply because some evangelicals don't want to see a Mormon as President and are unwilling to support him. I have no trouble myself tolerating Satan-worshippers in America, but I would not be inclined to vote for one as President: Does that make me bigot? The question of who we prefer to lead us has nothing to do with the question of who we are willing to tolerate, and it did Romney no credit to conflate these two quite distinct questions. There is nothing wrong with evangelicals wishing to see one of their own in the White House, or with atheists wishing to see one of theirs in the same position.