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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff><A
href="http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/romney-slaps-steele-over-mormon-comments-2009-05-11.html">http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/romney-slaps-steele-over-mormon-comments-2009-05-11.html</A></FONT></DIV>
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<TD class=contentheading width="100%"><STRONG><FONT size=5>Romney slaps
Steele over Mormon comments </FONT></STRONG></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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<TD vAlign=top align=left width="70%" colSpan=2><SPAN
class=contentauthor>By Reid Wilson </SPAN></TD></TR>
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<TD class=createdate vAlign=top colSpan=2>Posted: 05/11/09 04:13 PM [ET]
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<TD vAlign=top colSpan=2>Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) camp
is not happy with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's
suggestion that base Republicans had a problem with the 2008 presidential
candidate's Mormonism.<BR><BR>On Monday, Romney's camp responded to the
comments Steele made Friday while guest hosting a conservative radio show,
comments a Romney spokesman said were ill-considered.<BR><BR>
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<NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></DIV>Responding to a caller who said Romney could
have beaten President Obama had he won the nomination instead of Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.), Steele took his analysis to another
level.<BR><BR>"[R]emember, it was the base that rejected Mitt because of
his switch on pro-life, from pro-choice to pro-life. It was the base that
rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism," Steele
said.<BR><BR>"I mean, I hear what you’re saying, but before we even got to
a primary vote, the base had made very clear they had issues with Mitt
because if they didn’t, he would have defeated John McCain in those
primaries in which he lost," he added.<BR><BR>Camp Romney fired off a
quick response: "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip you miss the
target. This is one of those times," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told
The Hill.<BR><BR>Romney faced considerable challenges, especially with
political observers who said he would never be able to win over an
electorate skeptical of the Mormon faith. But the former governor proved
McCain's strongest challenger, hobbled in many cases by the presence of
former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, without whom Romney might have
overtaken McCain.<BR><BR>Romney won the straw poll at the Conservative
Political Action Conference three years in a row, picked up 11 states
during the primary season and won more than four million votes, second
only to McCain. Huckabee won more delegates, but he stayed in the race a
month after Romney did.<BR><BR>Romney is the latest 2008 presidential
candidate to take issue with a Steele statement. In early March, when in
an interview with <I>GQ</I> magazine Steele seemed to suggest abortion is
an individual decision, Huckabee struck back hard.<BR><BR>"For Chairman
Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the
individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but
it's a violation of the most basic of human rights -- the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," Huckabee said in a statement.
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