I was a delegate at the Southern Republican Leadership convention and voted
today for Mitt Romney in the straw poll. It was an exciting experience.
Mitt’s speech on Friday was well received and there were at least two
standing ovations during his presentation. All in all, I thought the
convention was a rousing success and I was gratified to see Mitt come in
second.
In watching the post-straw poll coverage on MSNBC (where was Fox News during
all of this?!!), Chris Matthews opined out loud that he thought Romney’s
campaign probably had success by working his Mormon network. Now I am
Mormon, and will say that many who were there to vote for Mitt, both from
Tennessee and from other states, were also Mormon. But I talked to a lot of
the delegates there to support Mitt, as I was interested to learn where they
were from and how they came to hear about Romney. I found that a good
portion of the delegates that I talked to were not members of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), but were from many different
religious faiths. The group who spearheaded the effort to support Mitt
Romney in the SRLC were from Columbia, TN and are Presbyterian. Others who
volunteered to help were from Philadelphia. They heard of Mitt when he ran
against Kennedy in 1994 and were amazed that he did so well. As they’ve
followed his campaign and have seen his stands on preserving the definition
of marriage, stem cell research and others, they have become convinced that
Mitt Romney was the candidate they wanted to support.
I bring this up because many conservatives, myself included, wonder what
reception Mitt Romney will receive from other Christian faiths, especially
in the South. I was encouraged by what I saw over the last two days. I think
the more that voters hear from Mitt Romney, the more that they will come to
see that he shares the conservative values they espouse.
Let me say a few other things.
I was very impressed by Sen. Norm Coleman, Gov. Mike Huckabee, Gov. Rick
Perry, House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Gov.
Barbour and especially J.C. Watts.
I thought Bill Frist’s speech was a little flat, mostly because he just, in
my opinion, is not the greatest speaker. Trent Lott’s speech was a little
too slick for me, and McCain’s speech, although he displayed a good working
knowledge of the foreign policy issues, like Iraq, the War on Terror and our
impending crisis with Iran, was flat at the beginning, and he wrapped
himself a little too flagrantly in his wartime experiences for my taste at
the end.
However, other than Romney, only Governor Rick Perry really confronted the
runaway spending of the last few years. Many either ignored it, or paid
scant and vague lip service to the problem. McCain touched on it, but didn’t
really speak to how much the lack of fiscal discipline by the Senate and the
president has become a real problem for Republicans, and is sapping their
enthusiasm. Only Governor Perry addressed the problem headon, and his
honesty and candor were really refreshing.