Tag Archive for "Mitt Romney"
For many months it has seemed obvious to me that in regards to their conservative political values, evangelical Christians would find Mitt Romney to be the most electable candidate. I know there are many evangelicals who deplore Mormonism and who define Mormonism as incompatible with Christianity. Still, from a pragmatic and practical point of view, it seems that evangelicals would want to pick Mitt Romney over Rudolph Giulani - particularly because of Giulani’s stance on abortion. Bob Jones III, described as “chancellor of the Christian fundamentalist school named for his family” puts it pretty succinctly in this article:
“If it turns out to be Giuliani and Hillary we’ve got two pro-choice candidates, and that would be a disaster.”
I was watching C-Span last week and caught a little bit of Mitt Romney (and his wife) speaking at a conference for conservatives. My impression was that he did his best to establish himself as enthusiastically conservative. His wife spoke and made it clear that they are approaching a landmark marriage anniverary (something like 37 years) and that they have ten grandchildren.
I’ve pondered some of the things I heard and it appears to me that as a competitor for the Republican candidacy, in response to the people he is competing with (most notably McCain and Giulani) the Romneys might be setting the bar too low. We need a lot more from a president than someone who merely claims to be staunch conservative (a claim which isn’t all that convincing) and has kept his marriage together for an extended period of time. Those two characteristics may appeal to a lot of Republicans and may cast him in a better light than some of his competitors - but these characteristics don’t guarantee that he’ll be the best leader for this country or demonstrate that he’ll really make things better.
On the same day, also on C-Span, I caught a good part of a speech by Barak Obama. He spoke well - in my opinion, better than Mitt Romney. He came across as having concrete and constructive aims and he seemed sincere about his political beliefs. From what he said and the way he presented himself, I was really impressed with him.
Frankly, in comparing these two men, I think Obama might have a greater purpose in running for the presidency. I suspect that by running for the presidency, Mitt Romney is serving his own ambitions and interests more than any particular constituency. I’m not necessarily convinced that Mormons or conservatives have a huge stake in Romney winning the election. On the other hand, I think Obama has a widespread constituency of minorities who really have a lot to gain by him winning the election - and he represents them well. He also strikes me as someone who could inspire the whole country, on a lot of levels.
Having said that, I have one concern about Barack Obama (and about the presidential candidates in general). If he were to win the primaries, I don’t know who his vice presidential candidate would be and I really don’t know much about the political team that is behind him. These are factors that are also very important.