Romney Backer: Values Voters Need New Litmus Test
Politico reports:
Mark DeMoss, a well-connected figure in the evangelical community and Mitt Romney supporter, sent a memo last week to Christian conservatives urging them to consider “a new litmus test” beyond traditional cultural issues
“A candidate for president of the United States should be capable of becoming president, and then competent to be the president,” DeMoss wrote in a five-page missive sent to about 200 top pastors, donors, intellectuals and leaders on the Christian right.
DeMoss, a public relations executive who also backed Romney in 2008, offered an impassioned case for the former Massachusetts governor but also took some barely-veiled swipes at Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.
“Those who would suggest I am placing values on the back burner will be misreading me and wrong,” he wrote. “I am only saying that a candidate’s values alone are not enough to get my vote. For example, my pastor shares my values, but I don’t want him to be my president. (By the way, ‘energizing a crowd’ is also not enough; Justin Bieber can do that—but I don’t want him to be president either.)”
DeMoss said in an email that Romney and his advisers didn’t know about the memo before he sent it and noted at the end that he has never been paid by the all-but-certain Republican presidential hopeful.
The document comes before any major Republicans have declared their intentions but as supporters of Romney, Huckabee and Palin – the top candidates in many early polls -- have begun eyeing one another.
DeMoss, who represents such leading evangelists as Franklin Graham, argued that most all of the likely Republican presidential candidates meet a values test so Christian conservatives should ask three other questions:1. Who is most capable of winning the Republican nomination?
2. Who is most capable of mounting the kind of campaign (raising money, recruiting staff and volunteers, presenting a clear message) necessary to upset a sitting president?
3. Who is most capable of actually being the president of the United States—governing and serving as the CEO of the largest enterprises on the planet?
Romney, argued DeMoss, was well-positioned financially and in the polls to meet the electability standard and, because of his background in business, is up for the job.
