Mitt Romney has been slipping a bit in the polls these days so he’s apparently decided to make things even worse for himself by invoking God and religion on the campaign trail at every opportunity just like his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, used to do while he was in office.
Romney is proudly showing himself up as a Bush in sheep’s clothing.
He’s ratcheting up the God rhetoric just as one would expect from a clone of G.W. If elected president, he will emphasize the role of God in American society. He will not “take God out of the public square,” he likes to emphasize at his campaign stops now.
Candidate Romney is trying to create a contrast with the Democratic Party and its recent convention struggle to keep God in the platform, According to Mark DeMoss, Romney’s adviser to the evangelical community.
“I will not take God out of my heart, I will not take God out of the public square, and I will not take it out of the platform of my party,” Romney has been trumpeting lately. “We are nation under God.”
Last week Romney pledged to keep God on U.S. currency, as if there is any chance in Hell that the government deity will ever be removed from U.S currency and coins.
“Our pledge says ‘under God,” he proclaims to the crowds. “I will not take God out of the name of our platform. I will not take God off our coins. And I will not take God out of my heart.”
He might just as well be saying: “I’m the clone of G.W. Bush. I will not preserve protect and obey the First Amendment Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”
On the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Romney tweeted, "On this most somber day, America is united under God in its quest and freedom at home and across the world."
“When [Republicans] get nervous about a loss, they go into base-whip-up stage,” says Jacques Berlinerblau, a Georgetown University professor with an expertise in religion and politics. “They try to energize the base even more.”
Of course, this is all red meat to the religious fanatics of the Republican Party base, who yearn for an American theocracy, but it surely won’t play very well with on the fence Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, and more moderate Republicans.
In short, if he keeps it up, Mitt Romney is going to hurt his already precarious chances to become the next president.
“They are totally getting off-script,” Berlinerblau said. “We hear that this election is all about the economy, but now we are talking about religion and faith issues.”
"We need a president who shares our commitment to conservative principles and our respect for traditional values," said Romney recently, invoking his former primary challenger and unabashed religious extremist, Rick Santorum, in a message to the Values Voter Summit, an annual conference organized by the socially conservative Family Research Council.
"We will uphold the sanctity of life, not abandon it or ignore it, and we will defend marriage, not try to redefine it," he declared.
With all due respect to Mr. Romney, while this rhetoric might have helped him get his party’s nomination from the foaming at the mouth right wing Bible thumpers, it is surely not the kind of divisive message which will be effective against president Obama and the Democrats in the general election.
Romney is just sounding more and more like George Bush warmed over. That’s exactly what the Democrats have been waiting for, and exactly how they will portray him in the crucial last days of the 2012 presidential campaign.
Another Bush in sheep’s clothing.
Didn't Bush get elected twice? Hasn't Obama carried on and expanded all of the significant Bush policies he initially ran against? Obama is just as religious as Bush and Romney. Are we supposed to be somehow comforted because Obama hides his religion rather than speaks it openly?
ReplyDeleteRomney's tactics have been shown to be far from failures in the past, but I take no comfort in that. There isn't a wits difference between either candidate or party. This election will change nothing.