[Apologetics] Romney slaps Steele over Mormon comments

[Art Kelly]

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/romney-slaps-steele-over-mormon-comm
ents-2009-05-11.html
Romney slaps Steele over Mormon comments 	
By Reid Wilson 	
Posted: 05/11/09 04:13 PM [ET] 	
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.

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.


 
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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.

"[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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Romney is the latest 2008 presidential candidate to take issue with a
Steele statement. In early March, when in an interview with GQ magazine
Steele seemed to suggest abortion is an individual decision, Huckabee
struck back hard.

"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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