It’s one thing for a Republican presidential candidate to get the tacit blessing of an evangelical leader, the kind John McCain got from Jerry Falwell by speaking at Liberty University last year. But God-o-Meter feels that it’s quite another to have a powerful evangelical figure actively evangelizing on your behalf. That’s what Mark DeMoss–a former chief of staff to Falwell and a force in the evangelical PR world whose clients include Focus on the Family and The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association–is doing for Mitt Romney. The New York Times caucus blog reports on a 5-page recommendation letter that DeMoss recently penned for Romney and sent to 150 conservative Christian leaders.

The letter, obtained by The Times, argues that unless conservative Christians galvanize around Romney, their diluted influence will boost socially liberal Rudy Giuliani’s fortunes. In that case, DeMoss goes on, the Christian Right’s threat to back a third party candidate over Giuliani could install Hillary Clinton in the White House.
Chagrined by talk in conservative Christian organizational circles that a Hillary presidency would fuel the kind of conservative outrage that helps fundraising, DeMoss writes: “I am not willing to risk negatively changing the Supreme Court, and our entire judicial system, for the next 30 years in exchange for building our conservative mailing lists and operating budgets for the next four or eight years.”
While it’s all well and good for Romney to have DeMoss on board, the real question is how successful DeMoss’s letter is stirring up additional support. After all, DeMoss himself is a behind-the-scenes player unknown even to many evangelicals. If he could get a few of his super high-profile clients to jump aboard the Romney wagon, God-o-Meter will be much more impressed.

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