It was Romney himself and his campaign spokesmen who kept bringing up the issue of religious bigotry. At least that was the case until Huckabee got involved.
But Huckabee ain’t my idea of a Christian, frankly. He’s a snake oil salesman, and he seems to have been working for McCain at that point. Out of the other side of his mouth he was busy accusing Fred Tompson of being pro-abortion, which is an outright lie.
I think you hit on a key point.. Fred was probably the most Conservative who actually could have stood a chance, but, due to his NBC contract forcing him to get in late, I think it allowed for the RINOs to get together and paint him as something he wasn’t (lazy, pro-abortion, pro-gun control and every other lie drummed up).. The stars where aligned against Fred in more ways than one. It is hard to come back when your opponents have that much time to define you and you can’t really rebut.