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From The Wall Street Journal - The Weekend Interview
Today’s Featured Article: “Who Would Jesus Pick?”
“The religious right’s would-be kingmaker talks about the presidential candidates.”
Ms. Riley’s interview of Dr. Land is outstanding; Mr. Land’s points are thoughtful and intelligent. Richard Land is the highly respected ‘Southern Baptist Convention’s representative in Washington’ — his perspective and opinions of any presidential candidate are obviously influential. But more importantly, his insightful comments here cast an important light on the national debate regarding who should be the next standard bearer of conservatism and of the immutable Christian-Judeo values Americans expect their supreme secular leader to possess.
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By Naomi Schaefer Riley
Saturday, April 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
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Following are excerpts from this great interview (unless otherwise noted, these quotes are Dr. Land’s):
Mayor Giliani:
Rudy Giuliani didn’t score many points with social conservatives last week when he issued this impassioned endorsement of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal ban on “partial-birth” abortion: “I agree with it.” He certainly didn’t win over Richard Land, who has said he would never vote for Mr. Giuliani. . . “If he’ll lie to two wives, what makes you think he wouldn’t lie to you?” . . . we have Rudy Giuliani, a twice divorced, pro-choice, supporter of civil unions.
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But it seems there is just about nothing Rudy Giuliani could do to change Mr. Land’s mind about his candidacy. “Three is one too many spouses for most evangelicals,” he says. . . What bothers Mr. Land is the “circumstances of [Mr. Giuliani's] divorce and the fact that there is more than one of them.” It’s not exactly a distinction the Bible makes, as Mr. Land no doubt knows, but he may be right about how much spouse-hopping evangelicals will tolerate.
Governor Romney:
Mr. Land might, on the other hand, vote for Mitt Romney. He says that evangelical voters may be able to get over their problems with a Mormon. “Charitably speaking,” Mr. Land says, “they would call [Mormonism] the fourth Abrahamic religion. When they’re less charitable, they would call it a cult.” And they might even let him off the hook for his flip-flops on the social issues. “A lot of people in this country who are pro-life didn’t used to be.”
Mr. Land says that reporters have misunderstood what it means that Mr. Romney has changed his mind. “Why does the liberal media call it a flip-flop? Because they believe in the moral correctness of their pro-choice position. The only reason someone would move from the morally correct position, as they perceive it, to the morally incorrect position is because of political expediency. But religious conservatives believe that their position is the morally correct position. So they don’t see this as a flip-flop. They see this as a journey . . . as growth.”
“Hard-to-Get”:
Richard Land is a man waiting to be courted, and on behalf of religious conservatives he is playing hard to get. He wants “to make certain that we never become as taken for granted by the Republican Party as African-Americans have been taken for granted by the Democratic Party.” . . . With a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a doctorate of philosophy from Oxford, he has often been credited with providing the intellectual heft behind the religious right’s political strategy.
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Dr. Richard Land [Wikipedia]
President of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
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Senator McCain:
John McCain, who voted against the gay marriage amendment and who crafted the campaign finance laws that have done much to damage the anti-abortion efforts of religious conservatives;
Senator Thompson:
. . . or perhaps Fred Thompson, who supported McCain-Feingold and says that gay marriage is a state issue. Mr. Land remains oddly upbeat, particularly about Mr. Thompson, the possibility of whose candidacy he finds “tantalizing.”
“The Unelectable Candidates”:
But he acknowledges the reality of his constituency’s situation: “Evangelicals would be very happy if Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback or Duncan Hunter were the nominee, but the problem with those three guys is they don’t give any indication they can win.” And he adds, “With Hillary Clinton looming on the horizon, electability is a very important issue.” . . . At the very least, the evangelical influence in the Republican primary will be diluted, with some religious conservatives thinking ahead to the general election and others going for the purest representative of their values. It is noteworthy that even among the unelectable candidates, evangelicals can’t make up their minds between a free-trade, open-immigration candidate like Sen. Brownback and a closed-borders protectionist like Rep. Hunter.
Governor Romney:
Mitt Romney is still a good possibility, but Mr. Land is waiting to see if the former Massachusetts governor will take his advice and give a major address on the way his faith influences his politics (à la JFK’s 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on his Catholicism).
Speaker Gingrich:
. . . Mr. Land wouldn’t vote for Newt Gingrich: “I am not a big enough hypocrite to have made character an issue with Bill Clinton and turn around and vote for men who broke their oaths to their wives.” Having been in his current position since 1988, Mr. Land has had more than enough opportunity to see Mr. Gingrich up close, and he has not been impressed: “When he was speaker, when they went into conference to negotiate, it was always our issues that got negotiated away and his economic issues that didn’t.” . . . Mr. Land suggests that Mr. Gingrich was good at paying lip service to evangelicals: “He always understood how important social conservatives were to the coalition.” But Mr. Land believes that many of them have learned their lesson: “I think most evangelicals still don’t trust him.”
Consequences of a Giuliani GOP win?
If Mr. Giuliani does somehow win the nomination, Mr. Land predicts that “you will see a drop in evangelical participation in the presidential election and in races below that.” Sounding more like a preacher warning of a coming plague, Mr. Land says, “even if the alternative is Hillary,” a lot of evangelicals will stay home.
Ms Riley’s entire Journal article is a must-read! Outstanding.
Notwithstanding Dr. Land’s perception of Fred Thompson, frankly he and the rest of the GOP candidates are literal light-weights when compared to Governor Romney’s long list of beefy credentials. One can argue about how Mitt Romney has grown more conservative as he has aged, but can any rational person actually think Governor Romney is inferior to any of the other candidates (Repub/Dem) when considering depth of executive experience, dozens of extraordinary business turn-arounds, and success at virtually everything he leads? Compare any of the men above to his intelligence, drive, determination, persistence, energy, capacity, etc. Some believe, if Romney is elected, he will be America’s most intelligent President ever - I do.
Romney has joint law and MBA degrees with Honors from Harvard, founded and ran what is arguably the most successful private equity firm in the world, got elected as a Republican governor in the most Democratic state in the Union (Massachusetts), has real values that he lives by (been married 36 years with five sons and 10 Grandkids), set an all time record for Republican Presidential fundraising (Q1/2007) by outdistancing by a wide margin John McCain and Rudy Giuliani (both of whom had huge advantages due to their name recognition) and brought the 2002 Olympic games from a $350 Million deficit to a $100 Million in profit while inspiring the nation with his presence, decisiveness, and commitment; and this as a three-year voluteer!
Mitt Romney is the only true leader and gifted statesman seeking the Office of President of the United States. His only ambition is to serve America in the family tradition which expects service to God, family, and nation.
No. None of the legislators and values-challenged politicians who attempt to compete with Mitt Romney even measure up to his stature.
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~ RHR
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