{"id":138,"date":"2007-11-29T17:54:48","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T17:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html"},"modified":"2007-11-29T17:54:48","modified_gmt":"2007-11-29T17:54:48","slug":"romney-team-delays-mormon-spee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html","title":{"rendered":"Romney Team Delays “Mormon Speech”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"romney5.jpg\"As outside pressure mounts on Mitt Romney to deliver a \u201cMormon speech\u201d in the style of John F. Kennedy\u2019s 1960 address<\/a> on his Catholicism, the Romney campaign has reached an internal decision to delay such a speech at least until early next year, according to two campaign advisors.
\n\u201cA lot of people were talking about doing it before Thanksgiving and the holidays, but then we moved up in the polls, including in South Carolina,\u201d a senior Romney advisor tells Beliefnet. \u201cSo the thinking became that the timing [for a speech on religion] was not as rushed.”
\nRomney advisors say an internal debate about whether the former Massachusetts governor needs to deliver a speech on his religion has been playing out inside his campaign for several weeks, mostly between evangelical Christian advisors who are pro-speech and non-Christian conservatives who see less of a need for one.
\n\u201cIt might be that a speech is more appropriate for late in the primaries or for the general election,\u201d said another Romney advisor. \u201cFrankly, this is going to be a question of polling; if we\u2019re doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire, and [Romney\u2019s Mormonism] is not coming up as a divisive issue, maybe we should just stay the course, since winning in those early states is key.\u201d
\n\u201cI came onto the campaign with great conviction that the speech needed to happen immediately,\u201d said this second advisor. \u201cNow, I\u2019m a little more hesitant.\u201d
\nBoth advisors requested anonymity so that they could speak candidly about internal campaign deliberations.
\n\u201cThere are some mainstream Republican advisors who aren\u2019t as sensitive to the fact that there is hesitation among evangelicals, and that a speech addressing faith and politics would be helpful,\u201d says a senior Romney advisor. \u201cRomney is a great communicator and could address the sensitivities in a way that would be productive for voters.\u201d
\nBut the anti-speech faction has won the debate at least for the time being, arguing that such an address could be given only once, and that the news environment is too cluttered for one speech to break through in a lasting way. But perhaps the strongest argument against the speech is Romney\u2019s success in early primary and caucus state polls.
\nAt the same time, a growing chorus of political pundits and Romney supporters are calling for a \u201cMormon speech.\u201d Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Mormon and a Romney supporter, said this week that \u201cThere’s a concern that [Romney\u2019s] religious beliefs might interfere with serving all people…. He needs to put that problem to bed.”
\n\u201cAll he needs to do is address it like JFK did,\u201d Hatch said in an interview<\/a> with the Associated Press.
\nBut the pro-speech faction inside the Romney campaign believes his task is more complex, since the thrust of Kennedy\u2019s speech was that his Catholicism would not interfere with his actions as president, while the Christian conservatives Romney is trying to appeal to want their president to be influenced by his faith. \u201cRomney would be doing something different,\u201d from JFK, said a campaign advisor. \u201cHe would be embracing his faith and saying \u2018It\u2019s part of me,\u2019 so it would be a new angle.\u201d
\nMark DeMoss<\/a>, a prominent evangelical public relations specialist who is doing outreach to conservative Christians on Romney\u2019s behalf, said he wasn\u2019t convinced that a \u201cMormon speech\u201d was necessary. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s critical that he do it, nor am I advising that he not do it,\u201d DeMoss said. \u201cThe reason I think it\u2019s not necessarily imperative that he do it is that he\u2019s talked a lot about his faith. It\u2019s a very visible part of his life and he\u2019s been transparent about it.\u201d
\nFormer Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee\u2019s recent rise in the Iowa polls, due largely to his success consolidating evangelical support there<\/a>, would seem to increase pressure on Romney to deliver the speech. But campaign advisors say Romney\u2019s strategy is to resist going after single-minded Christian conservatives who are unlikely to stray from Huckabee. Rather, the Romney campaign will spend the next few weeks hitting Huckabee on other issues, like immigration and taxes, which it believes are near and dear to most Christian conservatives.
\nGiven the choice between an evangelical who is right on some of the issues versus who is right on all the issues, I\u2019d rather go with the Mormon,\u201d said a Romney advisor.
\nAccording to an opposition document leaked to Beliefnet from a Romney advisor, the campaign will also attempt to paint Huckabee as being weak on terror, as pardoning too many violent criminals as Arkansas governor, and as a weak candidate due to lack of fundraising.<\/p>\n


\n6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As outside pressure mounts on Mitt Romney to deliver a \u201cMormon speech\u201d in the style of John F. Kennedy\u2019s 1960 address on his Catholicism, the Romney campaign has reached an internal decision to delay such a speech at least until early next year, according to two campaign advisors. \u201cA lot of people were talking about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitt-romney"],"yoast_head":"\nRomney Team Delays "Mormon Speech" - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romney Team Delays "Mormon Speech" - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As outside pressure mounts on Mitt Romney to deliver a \u201cMormon speech\u201d in the style of John F. Kennedy\u2019s 1960 address on his Catholicism, the Romney campaign has reached an internal decision to delay such a speech at least until early next year, according to two campaign advisors. \u201cA lot of people were talking about…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-29T17:54:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romney5.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Romney Team Delays \"Mormon Speech\" - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Romney Team Delays \"Mormon Speech\" - God-O-Meter","og_description":"As outside pressure mounts on Mitt Romney to deliver a \u201cMormon speech\u201d in the style of John F. Kennedy\u2019s 1960 address on his Catholicism, the Romney campaign has reached an internal decision to delay such a speech at least until early next year, according to two campaign advisors. \u201cA lot of people were talking about…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2007-11-29T17:54:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romney5.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html","name":"Romney Team Delays \"Mormon Speech\" - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romney5.jpg","datePublished":"2007-11-29T17:54:48+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-29T17:54:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romney5.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romney5.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-team-delays-mormon-spee.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Romney Team Delays “Mormon Speech”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}