God and the GOP

The brief apparition of a third Mitt Romney Presidential bid vanished last Friday, with a conference call to several of his supporters. â??You canâ??t imagine how hard it is for Ann and me to step aside,â? Romney told them. He added that he thought he would have won the Republican nomination again, and that heâ??d had the â??best chance,â? this time, to win the Presidency. There was a surprising reason for this optimism, which he had alluded to a couple of weeks earlier, during a speech at the Republican National Committeeâ??s winter meeting, on board the U.S.S. Midway. Despite his previous campaigns, people had not come to know the real Mitt Romney. He had been seen â??as a business guy and a political guy.â? Neither of those identities had workedâ??perhaps, although he didnâ??t say so, because they werenâ??t consistent with each other or with his record. Ann Romney, however, saw how he had â??served as a pastor for a congregation and for groups of congregations,â? a reference to his work as a lay bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If voters didnâ??t know this side of him, it was largely because he and his advisers had treated his Mormon faith as a liability, hardly to be spoken of, in part out of fear that it would alienate evangelicals in the Partyâ??s base. But now Romney seemed ready to be the religious guy. â??Thatâ??s the authentic Mitt,â? a family friend in Utah told the Washington Post. The report added that members of Romneyâ??s political circle â??said they are considering making Salt Lake City, the cradle of Mormonism, his 2016 campaign headquarters.â?