Jay Cost has a noteworthy post on the decision by the Romney campaign to forgo, at least for now, a major speech by the candidate on his Mormon faith. Romney himself addressed the matter before an audience in Holderness, New Hampshire, revealing that he is game for such a speech but that his aides aren't. "If Romney is not going to give such a speech," writes Cost, "we can infer that his advisers believe that the speech will not increase his share of the vote" and indeed may "diminish it."
Cost draws the right inference. But, in an interview today, Romney's press secretary Kevin Madden told me - as you'd expect him to - that "the decision for any speech is the governor's and the governor's alone." My sense is that he'll not give such a speech so long as he continues to receive endorsements from evangelical pastors and theologians - evangelicals being the least inclined among religiously defined groups to support a Mormon for president. Of importance here is that Romney's evangelical endorsers can speak in terms Romney himself cannot, as consider these points by Wayne Grudem, research professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary, in a column endorsing the former Massachusetts governor:
Can evangelicals support a candidate who is politically conservative but not an evangelical Christian? Yes, certainly. In fact, it would demonstrate the falsehood of the liberal accusation that evangelicals are just trying to make this a 'Christian nation' and only want evangelical Christians in office. ... [H]ave we come to the point where evangelicals will only vote for people they consider Christians? I hope not, for nothing in the Bible says that people have to be born-again Christians before they can be governmental authorities who are used greatly by God to advance his purposes.
Madden also told me that Romney isn't running to be "theologian-in-chief" or to win "endorsement of his religion." The "core message" he offers evangelicals is that "they share the same values."
