Mitt's Making Noise in the GOP 2008 Field

John Fund has a piece on Mitt Romney's appearance at the Family Research Council's gathering in Washington:

WASHINGTON--Right now John McCain is the front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. But everyone expects that a single major competitor will emerge to challenge him from the right. The question hung in the air of this past weekend's Family Research Council summit in Washington: Who will that candidate be for the GOP's powerful social conservative base?

FRC officials says they invited Mr. McCain to speak, but he declined. But another potential candidate benefited greatly from showing up. Surprisingly, it was Massachusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon with a Harvard M.B.A who governs the nation's most liberal state. The 1,800 delegates applauded him frequently during his Friday speech and gave him a standing ovation afterward. Mr. Romney detailed his efforts to block court-imposed same-sex marriage in the Bay State and noted that the liberal Legislature has failed to place a citizen-initiated referendum on the ballot. He excoriated liberals for supporting democracy only when they think that the outcome is a foregone conclusion that favors their views. He certainly picked up fans at the summit. "I believe Mitt Romney may be the only hope social conservatives have in 2008," says Maggie Gallagher, author of a book defending traditional marriage.

The tall barrier many see as blocking his acceptance by evangelical voters--the fact that many Americans view Mormonism with suspicion or worse--may prove to be a mirage. "Everyone I talked to said they didn't have a problem with it," one attendee told me. "If enough people say that to each other, Romney creates a virtuous circle in which evangelical activists decide he's acceptable." Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, notes that something similar has happened in recent years as devout Catholic and evangelical Protestants have increasingly focused on areas of agreement. "Romney won't be the ideal choice for evangelicals, but against a McCain in the primary or a Hillary Clinton in the general election there's no doubt where most would go," he says.

I don't trust John McCain, and based on a report at Article6Blog, McCain may have some of his undercover operatives out there trying to discredit Romney and Mormanism in general. Read about it here.

Although Romney is an attractive candidate in many ways, I still think it's going to come down to McCain and Rudy Giuiliani, and Rudy will prevail. McCain's too old, too volatile and wishy-washy on conservative issues. Rudy's got his problems on some of the issues near and dear to the conservative base, but America wants leadership in the White House, and I think that will trump the objections.