“Only the complete condemnation of the one and the uncritical praise of the other is allowed. “:
FR will not be used to promote Romney or bash Newt. If you don’t like it you are free to post somewhere else.
Yep, owners have the right to do what they want with their private property and I respect that.
I know your post was to Rev. Henrickson, but I want to respond as well.
I oppose Romney. Free Republic woke me up to how seriously wrong Romney's past positions were on abortion. I truly did not know that, and I think a lot of other Christian conservatives still don't realize just how bad Romney's prior views are, and how he gave every appearance of changing them based on political polling. Polls said he couldn't win Massachusetts as a pro-lifer so he became publicly pro-choice after a visit to Utah to explain to Mormon leaders what he was going to do. Then he became publicly pro-life when he decided to run for president as a Republican. No way do I want that kind of man picking Supreme Court judges who, after their Senate confirmation hearings, will never have to face voters again in their lifetime term of office!
Lots of us in the Christian conservative movement know Mormons personally. We know their emphasis on socially conservative family values, and we know the strict discipline they mete out to "wayward ones." We don't agree on theology, but many of us just can't conceive of how the Mormon Church could put up with Mitt Romney's pro-abortion politics, so we might be inclined to cut him some slack — until we remember Harry Reid, or get shown the actual videos of just how bad the stuff Romney said really was. Well, at least Reid had the integrity to be a Democrat. Once we realize what Romney's views really were — and had been been all the way back to his mother who lost a campaign based on being pro-choice — many of us Christian conservative start to get seriously upset.
For me, that's an absolute deal-breaker because of the Supreme Court issue. Too many Republican-nominated Supreme Court justices have gone on to become serious problems in their lifetime terms of office.
Again, Free Republic woke me up with regard to Romney. If it weren't for Free Republic I might still be on the fence. Thank you to FR — and let's see if we can get that message out to people who don't read FR but might watch a YouTube video of Romney talking if it's sent from our email accounts.
As for Gingrich, I'm not yet convinced. I can't vote for him anyway in Missouri because he didn't make the Republican primary ballot, and by the time the Missouri Republican caucuses come around, the nomination will probably be settled.
But barring something new showing up, I can almost certainly vote for Gingrich if the choice comes down to Gingrich versus Romney, or Gingrich versus Obama.
Hope that's clear enough for some Freepers who felt I've been attacking Gingrich. I remain seriously concerned, but elections count, and South Carolina proved that Gingrich can win Christian conservative votes by double-digit margins. I'm not sure what that says for the future of our country, but it does show Gingrich can win the South.
I think the best thing we as Christian conservatives can hope for now is that Gingrich means what he says about involving us in his culture war on liberalism and his international war on Islam. I was impressed, and frankly shocked (in a positive way), by what the pastor whose comments I linked to earlier posted about Gingrich's animosity toward Islam and belief that the Roman Catholic Church has the intestinal fortitude necessary to fight Islam. That's not politically correct at all, and that side of Gingrich I can really appreciate.
Like lots of other Freepers, I'm old enough to remember when Newt Gingrich did what many of us thought was beyond impossible, namely, taking control of the House of Representatives and becoming Speaker of the House.
He said and did things then I didn't like, and he's saying and doing things now I don't like.
But it's hard to argue against success. He won South Carolina. I didn't think he could do that. He won the Speaker of the House post; I didn't think he could do that, either.
And speaking as someone who sometimes gets accused of being too intellectual, I don't have any problem with the accusations that Gingrich thinks he's the smartest person in the room. I think in a lot of cases he may well be the smartest person in the room — he's definitely smarter than me, and he definitely won elections by using his smarts to figure out ways to do what most of us thought was impossible.
Now if Gingrich can figure out a way to convince evangelical Christians outside South Carolina not just to vote for him but also to work for him and donate money and serious campaign time, maybe he can just win this thing.
Right now, unless Santorum catches fire, I can't see we have any other choices left in the Republican race.