Conservative Christian offers praise for Romney
It wasn't quite an endorsement, but Mitt Romney must see promise in comments conservative icon James Dobson made about him yesterday.
Dobson, the influential leader of the Christian organization Focus on the Family, praised Romney on a radio program and said he may end up supporting him.
"I mean he's very presidential and he's got the right answers to many, many things," Dobson told conservative commenator Laura Ingraham on her show. Dobson said he hasn't decided whom to back, but that Romney "is still on the list."
Dobson, whose voice carries tremendous weight among Christian conservatives, said this week that he could never support former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. And he has said before that he won't back the other leading Republican, Arizona Senator John McCain. That leaves Romney as the only top-tier presidential candidate who could land Dobson's endorsement -- a potentially huge boost for him as he tries to win primary voters.
Last fall, Dobson said he doubted that Romney, a Mormon, would appeal to a lot of Christian voters because of his religion. Earlier this year, Romney met privately with Dobson for nearly two hours at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs .
Interest in the early stages of the 2008 campaign has been so strong that voters are jamming meeting halls and standing in long lines to see the leading candidates.
Crammed into a gymnasium in Council Bluffs with 3,000 others to hear Democrat Barack Obama during a recent campaign swing, Dick Myers recalled the days when a few people would gather in a living room to chat and sip coffee with a presidential candidate. "You can say it's good, you can say it's bad, but it's changing," said Myers, a motorcycle dealer and former Democratic state legislator.
In a poll released April 12 by The Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 55 percent of voters surveyed said they are paying "very or fairly close" attention to the presidential race nine months before Iowa's leadoff caucuses. By contrast, only 38 percent were paying close attention in early 2003 and 45 percent in early 1999.
Democrats have consistently paid greater attention to the 2008 race than Republicans by an average of 12 percentage points, the Pew poll indicates .
One result has been a series of large events in which most voters never get to share their concerns, ask questions, or even shake hands with the top tier candidates.
Senator Hillary Clinton of New York draws thousands of people to her town hall meetings, and in March she used 300 people as a backdrop for an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Recently, John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, drew hundreds to events in eastern Iowa and more than 1,000 to a packed school gymnasium in Des Moines. As the candidate ended his appearance, campaign staffers strung a rope line around him to keep back the crowd.
Crowds have been smaller for Republican front-runners, but in April nine GOP candidates made pitches at an event attended by more than 1,000 activists. (AP)
Senator Mel Martinez, who heads the national party, told an audience of GOP state leaders in Columbia, S.C., that Florida's leaders have been warned of consequences should they hold their primary Jan. 29. Florida's governor plans next week to sign that change into law.
Party rules call for a loss of delegates at the party's national convention and other sanctions.
"The rules are inflexible and it doesn't matter who is running the RNC, those rules will be enforced because they are part of the rules that were crafted at the last convention and they can't be changed," Martinez said.
Florida's GOP chairman, Jim Greer, said the penalty had been considered. "We felt that moving the primary up outweighed any of the sanctions that would be imposed on Florida," he said. (AP) 