Evangelical Leaders Liking Romney?

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These evangelical leaders frustrate me with their failure to recognize that IF Mitt Romney was going to catch on with evangelicals it would have happened about 5-10 million dollars ago.

FULL STORY: [Gary] Bauer said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the most “problematic from the standpoint of values voters.” Both [Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins] said they thought that former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.) did well in his debate debut, that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can overcome questions about his religion and — perhaps most surprisingly — that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is perceived to be good on their issues but soft on terrorism.

Perkins and Bauer said they are both convinced that Romney’s evolution on the abortion issue is a legitimate conversion, “even if the movement tends to coincide with a primary schedule,” as Bauer said. “I don’t think he’s flip-flopping,” Perkins said.

Mr. Perkins and Mr. Baurer, Romney faces real concerns regarding his changing positions, his Mormon faith, and what can come across as his slickness. Why not support a candidate who is only 2% behind Romney in the national polls and who has no major issues to overcome besides the fact that leaders like yourselves haven't yet gotten behind him?

Mike Huckabee is a candidate who is not just coming to us — he's coming from us. He's a candidate who can make conservative principles beautiful again to a harshly divided electorate. [And by the way, who said Huckabee was soft on terrorism?]

Over 100 of the 219 delegates who voted for Huckabee at the Values Voter Debate switched their support from candidates like Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney over the course of the debate. From pre-debate to post-debate polling Romney lost every single one of the supporters he had coming in — these are people who were planning to vote for him, until they listened to Mike Huckabee.

Mitt Romney is NOT the flag-bearer evangelicals can rally around — and that will be even more clear once values voters once again rally behind Huckabee for the FRC Straw Poll.