Tuesday, November 06, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

Paul Weyrich Talks About Why He Endorsed Romney - And Not the Others

I spoke to Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and a founder of the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority, about his endorsement of Mitt Romney.

“I felt it would come down to a contest between Giuliani and Romney,” Weyrich said. “I don’t want Giuliani as the nominee because a lot of our values voters will defect... I know the same argument is made about Romney, but eventually, I think those voters can be brought around. There is a hardcore group that absolutely will not vote for Giuliani… I don’t think they’ll go for a third party candidate, I think they’ll stay home. I think there’s no convincing them. I’ve talked to a number of these folks. Even though they recognize that Hillary is a real problem, they think that it’s better to have somebody bad like that than it is to have somebody halfway reasonable.”

On the other candidates, Weyrich said each one, ultimately, had flaws too large to earn his endorsement.

“I’m on the permanent executive committee of the Arlington Group, which was formed to push for the Federal Marriage Amendment. We’ve got [Fred] Thompson who says he can’t support that. I can’t push this for the past several years and then say, ‘oh, that’s not so important.’ … I’ve been working with candidates for close to fifty years I recognize candidates with fire in the belly. I’ve got to tell you, I do not think Thompson really wants to be elected that badly.”

“As for McCain, I can’t support him —  McCain-Feingold is a dealbreaker, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Huckabee, I came close to supporting him, and if we were running for some sort of religious organization, I would support him, but we’re not. He has compromised on so many conservative issues, I simply can’t be for him. Every time you turn around, he’s taking the wrong stand on a different issue.”

“I know there’s the issue that Romney has flip-flopped, but so have most of the other candidates,” Weyrich said. “I’ve questioned him very thoroughly and I’m of a mind that he is sincere in his change of heart. I may be wrong but I have interviewed hundreds of candidates over the years, and I have a sense of these things.

Weyrich said he wasn’t worried about Romney’s comparatively low name ID at this point.

“If he wins Iowa, New Hampshire, maybe wins in South Carolina, that it’ll take care of itself. Anybody who wins in all of those states is going to get a lot of coverage.”

Weyrich said other candidates sought his nomination, but that he reached out to Romney, not the other way around. “I was impressed with the dynamism of the candidate. He’s a candidate that will impress the American public.”

11/06 03:46 PMShare