Romney - The Speech

The main structural flaw in Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy is, and always has been, that he is a Mormon seeking the nomination of a party whose base is dominated by Christian religious extremists.

I have been writing about this for more than a year now. The voters with the most influence in the Republican primary process were never going to accept Romney because they consider his religion to be a cult. The conventional wisdom that Romney could win them over with an appeal to shared values was a non-starter. It was never going to help him over the main hurdle with religious conservatives, and actually harmed him by establishing him as flip-flopping huckster with many others. The exceptions were mainstream Republicans who, for some reason, decided early on that he was the most electable of the pack of misfits on their side. Maybe it was the hair.

At any rate, Romney's shameless pandering to the religious right was never anything more than a coat of primer. Rather than cover up the flaw, it only called more attention to it.

I have understood for quite some time that as soon as religious conservatives started to examine their options, they would hone in on somebody who was actually one of them, rather than somebody who was pretending to be one of them, i.e. Thompson, McCain, and most especially, Romney. It was inevitable that they would pick Huckabee.

Now, in response to Huckabee's surge in Iowa, Romney is delivering what he is selling as a speech about the role of faith in American life. But he has been talking about faith the entire time. His candidacy has been based on blurring the difference between faith and doctrine, and hoping that Christian conservative voters would buy it.

No, this speech is not about faith in American life. It is about trying to reassure Christian GOP primary voters that his Mormon faith is not a threat to them and to their worldview.

The speech is doomed to fail. Literally, the only thing Romney could say that would reassure Christian conservatives is, "I am renouncing the cult that is the Mormon church, and am turning my life over to the only savior, Jesus Christ the Son of God." That's it, and I doubt very strongly that it would work. Religious conservatives already have their guy. They have no use for Romney.

And even if Romney did renounce his faith, it would only intensify the criticism of him as a conviction-free snake oil salesman. That's what we call a lose-lose.