comMITTed to Romney!

Following are results of a CNN exit poll conducted in New Hampshire Tuesday among 1,520 voters. Though these results reflect the fact that the majority of voters chose McCain and Romney, there are some very interesting differences, especially where Romney ended ahead of the winner, McCain:

Republican Voters (”Vote by party ID” — excludes independents) chose:

MR — 35%
JM — 34%
MH — 13%
RG — 10%
.
.
All voters chose their candidate as the “Strongest Leader” — This measures the strength of the voters’ choice (in other words, which candidate got the most votes in this category by comparison to the others?):

MR — 86%
MH — 84%
JM — 81%
RG — 55%
.
.
Voters of New Hampshire that strongly oppose civil unions:

MR — 37%
JM — 32%
MH — 11%
RG — 6%
.
.
Very worried about Terrorism:

MR — 39%
JM — 33%
MH — 12%
RG — 10%
.
.
Voters that think the new President should be more conservative than President Bush:

MR — 35%
JM — 31%
MH — 13%
RP — 10%
.
.
The following result was stunning to me. John McCain, the military man came in third! Even McCain supporters are less sold on McCain by comparison to the other voters. And Giuliani 4th at 58%? What about his “9/11″ credentials?
All voters chose their candidate as the “Best Commander in Chief” — This measures the strength of the voters’ choice (in other words, which candidate got the most votes in this category by comparison to the others?):

MR — 94%
MH — 89%
JM — 78%
RG — 58%
.
.
Conservative Voters chose:

MR — 38%
JM — 30%
MH — 12%
RG — 8%
.
.

Check the gap here between Governors Romney and Huckabee:

Very Conservative Voters chose:

MR — 43%
MH — 19%
JM — 18%
RP — 7%
.
.
Voters that think this candidate shares their values:

MR — 38%
MH — 22%
JM — 16%
RP — 12%

See link in the opening paragraph for many more results. These are but few of many very interesting numbers. Governor Romney was the strongest candidate in many of the voters’ minds.

~ Vic

SMALL DOLLARS COUNT BIG — Please Contribute Here to Governor Romney’s Campaign

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Welcome to me, the latest addition to the ElectRomneyIn2008.com blogger staff. My name is Paul Johnson and this is my first posting. I have some good tidbits for you live from Urbandale, IA, one of Mitt Romney’s volunteer campaign sites.

First a bit about me: I’m a corporate lawyer by trade, trained at BYU both undergrad (dual major in English and Business) and grad school (JD/MBA). I started my career in the internet boom in Palo Alto, CA in ‘96, transferred with my then-current firm to San Diego in ‘99, and have stayed in San Diego since. I specialize in corporate financings and in mergers and acquisitions.

My intro to Mitt Romney was, like many, through hearing about the debacle that was unfolding at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics. As someone who spent a lot of time in Utah, I didn’t want the state or our country to be embarrassed by the event. I heard someone named Mitt Romney, a very successful business person with Bain, was being put in charge, and not long after was hearing things were turning around. Of course September 11 intervened and the Olympics staff had to respond to an entirely unforeseen security threat in just a few months’ time. I myself was going to be attending the event with my 3 sons, so security was a concern for me. When I arrived, security was tight and the event unbelievably well-organized.

Next I heard about the Miracle in Massachusetts, how the same Mitt Romney, a republican, had somehow been elected to be governor of a deep blue state. Another good impression. I knew this person must have cross-party appeal. More good news followed as Mitt was able to balance MA’s budget, then actually adopt a healthcare plan tailored for the state. Then I hear about the MA Supreme Court’s decision (described here by CNN). CNN said at the time: “Massachusetts’ governor immediately denounced Tuesday’s decision and said he would work for a constitutional amendment to overturn it,” and I was glad to know we had a resourceful man of integrity at the forefront of this issue.

More good impressions followed. A few years ago Matt Romney, Mitt’s son, moved into my neighborhood (see Matt’s musings at the Five Brothers Blog). Matt and I ended up on some volunteer assignments together. I’d told Matt I was a baseball fan, so he invited me at one point to a game with him, his brother, Tagg and a few other friends. I came to find out as well that another friend, Jim Davies, was Ann Romney’s brother. When it began to be rumored Mitt might run for president, I told Matt if his dad ran, I’d be interested in pitching in. Soon I was attending events in San Diego and contributing to the campaign, a first for me. A couple weeks ago I began responding to some bitter and biased posts about Mitt, his family and his religion, some things I knew a little about first-hand, by some readers of The Politico (a site I otherwise enjoy) and other political websites. Now I find myself in Urbandale doing my first blog post!

I’ll get to where I agree with Mitt on policy issues in future posts, but for now here are some snapshots from one of the command centers.

A visit from Ann Romney

The troops got encouragement from Ann Romney just before lunch. She met with volunteers and gave her pitch for her husband as a man capable of addressing our country’s complex issues.

Here’s the view from the cheap seats!

Here’s Ann with grandson Parker:

Visits from the Press

Yesterday we had a visit from CNN. Today the folks from Salt Lake’s KSL TV and Salt Lake’s CBS affiliate were here, as was RAI from Italy. Jim Davies gave an interview in fluent Italian. It’s been great to be at ground zero at such an influential time in American politics. Channel 24 from Argentina is just going through now. Wish you were here, where we hope to be a part of electing the next president of the U.S. More to come…

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As I make my daily journey across the blogosphere, I frequently encounter comments from people who completely dismiss Mitt Romney based on the frequent misconception that he “changes his positions” or has been “on both sides of major issues.” So if someone reading this is considering taking a second look and supporting Governor Romney, let me help set the record straight for you.

There has been one, precisely one, change on any major issue. Anyone who says otherwise is just spouting the talking points of the Democratic National Committee who has been hitting him with this for months. Why? Because he is a supremely qualified candidate, and they know it, and they know he will whip them next November if he gets the Republican nomination. So let’s look at the major issues where is is often accused of “changing.”

The one change he made was regarding abortion. Up until 2004, he was effectively pro-choice from a governance point of view, meaning that he was personally opposed to it, but would not get in the mode of having government enforce his view. But in 2004, the issue of therapeutic cloning came before him as governor, and he was struck with how society was getting ready to create human life just to kill it, and he made a decision, (a costly one politically it would seem) to come down on the side of life. He has taken lots of heat for that decision, many saying that it was political pandering, etc. etc. But those of us familiar with Governor Romney’s character know that this was in fact a heart-felt and weighty decision for him, where he ultimately came down on the side of life. Most pro-life circles accept converts, and many leading pro-life activists have rejoiced in Mitt’s conversion. Those throwing jabs at him are those who are pro-choice anyway (or those bigoted against him for other less politically correct reasons).

As for the other frequent jabs at him regarding gay rights and gay marriage, he has ALWAYS been in favor of gays having equal treatment in the workplace etc., but he has ALWAYS been opposed to so-called gay marriage and civil unions. The first issue, namely gay rights in general, involves rights of people to live and function in society without repercussions regarding their sexual orientation. Mitt has always been in favor of this. The latter issue, however, attempts to redefine a pillar of society that has stood for thousands of years, and Mitt has always opposed any redefinition of marriage and in recent years has fought this battle on the front lines. Mitt’s position is entirely consistent from every angle–he supports gay rights in general, but opposes the redefinition of marriage. But this position drives liberals nuts, so they make groundless attacks against him based on it. But sorry, no changes here.

As for gun rights, he has always supported the basic right to bear arms, but has always opposed high-lethality weapons such as assault rifles. He has always supported reasonable waiting periods for handgun sales, primarily for background check purposes, but supports the rights of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. He has had the support of the NRA in his three campaigns, despite the fact that by his own admission, he does not line up with them 100%. This has been a consistent position throughout his public life. Again, no changes here.

His position on illegal immigration has always been that he wants to find ways to solve the problem, but has always called for immigrants to follow the law, and has always rejected any special treatment, amnesty, or fast track to citizenship for those who have failed to follow the law. Sorry, no changes here either.

So, gentle readers, I invite you to take a second look at Mitt Romney if you are otherwise simply dismissing him out of hand because of the DNC “flip-flop” talking points. Those talking points are simply without merit.  He has a distinguished record as a turn-around champion in business, in the 2002 Olympics, and the state of Mass. where he balanced the budget by making government more efficient instead of by raising taxes. He is exactly what Washington needs. He is intelligent, well spoken, principled, and a clean living family man with no skeletons in his closet. His religion, which some misguidedly see as a liability, is actually a great strength to him personally, because it informs his moral choices and lifestyle, and gives him a work ethic and commitment to service that is unmatched in the current field of candidates. So if your second look has led you here, then please throw your support behind Mitt Romney!

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A quick quiz . . .

Question: Which candidate has (wait to click on the links if you don’t want to ruin the suspense):

1) A GOP pro-abortion group attacking him with negative TV ads in Iowa (and New Hampshire)?

2) A GOP gay agenda group (the Log Cabin Republican) attacking him with negative TV and radio ads in Iowa? (Also, this candidate is front-page issue #1 on their website where they are soliciting donations to help take him down.)

Answer Key:
Logically that should be the supposed newfound leader/candidate of the Evangelical Christian movement Mike Huckabee, right?

Wrong, the correct answer is Mitt Romney.

Believe me, there’s ammo on both these issues that these groups could go after Huckabee if they wanted to (like him comparing abortion to the Holocaust).

Now think about this: which candidate do you think the GOP pro-abortion and GOP pro-gay agenda groups ARE pulling for in this race?

That’s a no-brainer . . . it’s THE GOP candidate that IS pro-abortion and pro-gay agenda . . . Rudy.

Many see that this is a way for Rudy to attack Mitt without doing it himself and without using his own money. But what is being lost is that they are holding their fire for Huckabee, because even they see that any challenge to Mitt in Iowa is good news for Rudy.

Makes ya wonder, eh?

Jeff Fuller

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Some people ask us why we spend time talking about the competitors on this blog. That what they come to this site for is information about Mitt, not negatives on the competitors.

I can understand that sentiment, but I’m going to do another Giuliani post anyway. I believe that an important role of this blog is not only to give information about Mitt, but also to arm Mitt supporters with the information they need to refute the charges coming from the other camps.

Hopefully all of us are talking with our family, friends, and co-workers about why we like Mitt. An important part of being credible in that conversation is being knowledgeable on the other candidates, and convincing about why we don’t support them.

So, click through here to go to the Romney campaign’s latest press release describing how Rudy and Hillary share Liberal values and a “New York State of Mind” in common. (full text after the jump).

More »

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Visit CBS News to watch the entire video.

He goes further in depth about his faith than he has before…

I’m happy about it, I have felt that it’s been a shame that he’s had to be so careful (understandably so) about talking about his faith. Every other candidate (like Mike’s post from earlier from the Boston Globe piece) can talk openly and freely about their faith. They can meet with religious leaders of their faith whenever they want (press in hand even). But, Governor Romney has to fight against such utter bigotry on this issue that he is shackled. I’m sure that privately he speaks to leaders of the church, etc., but it’s just not the same as the other candidates can do.

I am hoping that it becomes less and less of an issue, but at least for now that looks almost impossible. So, he has to take what he can get and hope that it turns out for the positive. It’s so nice to see some evangelicals coming out and endorsing him for President. It was absolutely awesome to see him win the FRC straw poll vote, it’s just so unfortunate that the faith issue has to dog him so badly all the time. But, because Governor Romney is who he is, and he’s faced this sort of rejection his entire life if anyone can overcome it he can.

Here’s Bob Schieffer’s written commentary after the interview:

(CBS) Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.
When former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, he said he believed in God and would say no more about it than that. He said the rest was his business.

That’s a good answer as far as I am concerned. That’s why - when I interviewed former Governor Romney - I asked how much of his faith he felt obligated to share with voters.

I brought it up because polls show many Americans say they just won’t vote for a Mormon. For a Mormon politician, that’s not a religious problem, it’s a political problem.

So when Romney said he was happy to be asked, I asked.

I found his answers interesting. He outlined how he saw the relationship of his religion to the duties of the presidency in much the way that John Kennedy explained his faith in that 1960 speech after people questioned his Catholicism.

Romney didn’t go as far as Kennedy but I came away feeling I knew more about who he was and that helps to make a political, not a religious judgment.

Had he said his religion was none of my business, I would have taken that as a legitimate answer. In America, what we choose to tell others about our faith is nobody’s business but our own.

Kennedy said he hoped no one would vote for or against him because he was Catholic. Romney said the same.

I think they got that part exactly right.

CBS News Face the Nation Transcript

Update:
YouTube now has Bob Schieffer’s Commentary…

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