As the campaign moves into Alabama and Mississippi, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, faces ranks of evangelical Christians who have not been friendly thus far.
How should he deal with that? Chances are he’ll try to move closer to their views on social issues — exactly the wrong thing to do.
Romney has nothing to prove on the family values front. No one in the campaign in either party is any more devoted a husband or father. His record in Massachusetts also shows him to be aware of the impact of high health care costs on families with modest incomes as well as the shameful number of families who were without health care coverage before his health care bill became law.
He can proudly be his own true self when it comes to personal and public moral issues.
Romney is vulnerable on some economic and social issues, which are not high priorities for evangelical activists. His positions on those may be assets in the hard core Republican south rather than liabilities.
But he will fall flat on his back in Mobile and Natchez if he leans too far over backward, trying to be something he isn’t — and shouldn’t want to be.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
