Bryan Fischer
Mitt Romney is toast
By Bryan Fischer
I just returned from the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., and the main takeaway is this: Mitt Romney is toast.
Tony Perkins and FRC Action were entirely right to invite Romney to speak. (AFA Action was a co-sponsor of the event.) Romney is eager to court the pro-family community, and deserved the opportunity to persuade values-driven voters of his bona fides. In this task he failed.
While one conservative leader after another — Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Pence, and Jim DeMint to name a few — rang the chimes on the importance of keeping social issues at the heart of the conservative agenda, Mr. Romney managed only one passing reference to the sanctity of life and sanctity of marriage.
On top of that, Romney's speech came across as plastic, forced, and stilted. He was the only speaker of the weekend to use a teleprompter, and at times tried to be more of a stand-up comic than a political leader. He seemed to be working to get a Las Vegas lounge act instead of a seat in the Oval Office. While other conservative speakers spoke from the heart, he spoke from a script.
But it is his glaring weaknesses on social issues that will doom his chances for electoral success in 2012. He was given the feature slot at the Values Voter Summit, the last spot on the Friday morning slate, and his speech fell flatter than the proverbial pancake. Response was polite but tepid.
And the fact is that Romney has fatally wounded himself in the eyes of pro-family voters in three distinct ways. (As you will note, the problems with Romney's candidacy identified below have nothing to do with his religion but everything to do with his public policy positions.)
First, he is directly to blame for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. While its supreme court instructed the state assembly to enact a law legalizing same-sex marriage, the assembly never did. Undeterred, Romney, with no legal authority whatsoever, ordered county clerks to start issuing wedding licenses to homosexual couples or get fired.
Note well: no law has ever been passed in Massachusetts to legalize same-sex marriage. The supreme court gave the assembly 180 days to pass such a law, but it didn't do it. Homosexual marriage is still technically against the law in the Bay State.
So Gov. Romney violated state law when he legalized homosexual marriage by executive fiat. he ordered state employees to break state law or face the threat of termination. He will never be able to run away from that, and thus it is no surprise that sanctity of marriage got scant mention in his Values Voter Summit speech.
Second, he has also fatally wounded himself by pushing RomneyCare through in Massachusetts, a state version of ObamaCare. We are seeing in Massachusetts what government-run medical care and a health insurance mandate looks like in action. The cost of health care is skyrocketing, the cost of health insurance is skyrocketing, folks are gaming the system by waiting until they get sick to get coverage (because it's cheaper to pay the fine while you're healthy), businesses are dumping their employees into the public system, fewer doctors are taking Medicare patients, and one doctor after another is leaving the state or retiring early.
The more people become aware of the eerie similarities between RomneyCare and ObamaCare, the farther Romney's star will fall.
And third, to make matters grotesquely worse for Mitt, RomneyCare provides the cheapest abortions in the nation. For just a $50 co-pay, a woman can arrange to have her baby butchered in the womb. No wonder sanctity of life got one scant mention in Romney's Values Voter Summit speech.
No Republican candidate can win in 2012 without the enthusiastic backing of the pro-family community. Witness John McCain's flameout in 2008. There is no possible way Mitt Romney can light a fire under the pro-family community, and the sooner pro-family leaders recognize this and look elsewhere for a horse to ride, the better.
Evangelical leaders were divided over Romney's candidacy in 2008. A number of prominent evangelicals backed him, while others strongly resisted, creating significant internal division.
Pro-family leaders should not founder on the same rock in this next cycle. Mitt Romney is not the man for 2012.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
September 21, 2010
I just returned from the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., and the main takeaway is this: Mitt Romney is toast.
Tony Perkins and FRC Action were entirely right to invite Romney to speak. (AFA Action was a co-sponsor of the event.) Romney is eager to court the pro-family community, and deserved the opportunity to persuade values-driven voters of his bona fides. In this task he failed.
While one conservative leader after another — Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Pence, and Jim DeMint to name a few — rang the chimes on the importance of keeping social issues at the heart of the conservative agenda, Mr. Romney managed only one passing reference to the sanctity of life and sanctity of marriage.
On top of that, Romney's speech came across as plastic, forced, and stilted. He was the only speaker of the weekend to use a teleprompter, and at times tried to be more of a stand-up comic than a political leader. He seemed to be working to get a Las Vegas lounge act instead of a seat in the Oval Office. While other conservative speakers spoke from the heart, he spoke from a script.
But it is his glaring weaknesses on social issues that will doom his chances for electoral success in 2012. He was given the feature slot at the Values Voter Summit, the last spot on the Friday morning slate, and his speech fell flatter than the proverbial pancake. Response was polite but tepid.
And the fact is that Romney has fatally wounded himself in the eyes of pro-family voters in three distinct ways. (As you will note, the problems with Romney's candidacy identified below have nothing to do with his religion but everything to do with his public policy positions.)
First, he is directly to blame for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. While its supreme court instructed the state assembly to enact a law legalizing same-sex marriage, the assembly never did. Undeterred, Romney, with no legal authority whatsoever, ordered county clerks to start issuing wedding licenses to homosexual couples or get fired.
Note well: no law has ever been passed in Massachusetts to legalize same-sex marriage. The supreme court gave the assembly 180 days to pass such a law, but it didn't do it. Homosexual marriage is still technically against the law in the Bay State.
So Gov. Romney violated state law when he legalized homosexual marriage by executive fiat. he ordered state employees to break state law or face the threat of termination. He will never be able to run away from that, and thus it is no surprise that sanctity of marriage got scant mention in his Values Voter Summit speech.
Second, he has also fatally wounded himself by pushing RomneyCare through in Massachusetts, a state version of ObamaCare. We are seeing in Massachusetts what government-run medical care and a health insurance mandate looks like in action. The cost of health care is skyrocketing, the cost of health insurance is skyrocketing, folks are gaming the system by waiting until they get sick to get coverage (because it's cheaper to pay the fine while you're healthy), businesses are dumping their employees into the public system, fewer doctors are taking Medicare patients, and one doctor after another is leaving the state or retiring early.
The more people become aware of the eerie similarities between RomneyCare and ObamaCare, the farther Romney's star will fall.
And third, to make matters grotesquely worse for Mitt, RomneyCare provides the cheapest abortions in the nation. For just a $50 co-pay, a woman can arrange to have her baby butchered in the womb. No wonder sanctity of life got one scant mention in Romney's Values Voter Summit speech.
No Republican candidate can win in 2012 without the enthusiastic backing of the pro-family community. Witness John McCain's flameout in 2008. There is no possible way Mitt Romney can light a fire under the pro-family community, and the sooner pro-family leaders recognize this and look elsewhere for a horse to ride, the better.
Evangelical leaders were divided over Romney's candidacy in 2008. A number of prominent evangelicals backed him, while others strongly resisted, creating significant internal division.
Pro-family leaders should not founder on the same rock in this next cycle. Mitt Romney is not the man for 2012.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
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