Here is the problem with your argument:
“And the reason not to vote for Romney can be summarized in these terms: unless we deny him or politicians like him leadership, a leader we need won’t emerge.”
That sums it up nicely.
It is based on the false premise that our renewal as a nation will come from a political leader.
It will not.
It will come from the Holy Spirit.
How He will work, I don't know. But he will NOT do his work through our politics. If God chooses to call us to repentance and conversion as a nation, it will be through our culture. He will renew us through cultural change, not through political change.
When He (IF He decides to) has changed our hearts sufficiently, our politics will change almost naturally. Not without great strife and battle. The minions of Satan (i.e., the Party of Satan - the Dammocraps) won't give up easily. At least, I'd be kind of surprised if they did.
On November 5, the best we could have hoped for from our politics is that we would elect sufficiently-decent leaders who would hold off the flood a little longer from the great damage done to us as a society by our collapse of social values. The deficit is a symptom. The debt is a symptom. Our declining global power (which is a good thing, by the way, not a bad thing - the Pax Americana has been very kind to the world, overall) is a symptom. Declining educational results are a symptom. Increased poverty is a symptom. Increasingly dysfunctional health care financing (ironically in the nation with the best-functioning health care system in the world) is a symptom. Intermediate causes are: things that cause the breakdown of the family, including illegitimacy, divorce, widespread acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle, abortion, and yes, contraception. The ultimate cause is the rejection of the Creator's place in our lives by most people.
On November 5, politics could treat the symptoms in the short run. We would have still needed to be called to repentance and conversion as a nation.
On November 7, politics can no longer hold back the flood. We will be inundated. We will enter the time of suffering. Politics can be used to ameliorate, maybe, some of the harsher edges of what is here and what is coming.
But no amount of monkeying around with the configuration of political parties, or jimmying around with nominating processes, or jury-rigging shifting political alliances or anything like that is going to address the fundamental, underlying disease of our country.
To disdain the candidacy of Gov. Romney because he was not the Hope of Renewal needed for our country borders on idolatry. THE SALVATION OF OUR COUNTRY WILL NOT BE FOUND IN POLITICS. It will be found in God, alone. If he chooses to save us. Which he may not.
“It just was not wise: if you profess such position, — as opposed to acquiesce to it in order to pass a law, — then clearly you have not thought your pro-lifer philosophy through, or you are lying about it to maximize votes.”
Not in the case of Gov. Romney. LDS theology has different premises than orthodox Christian theology. Making the case for some limited allowance of some abortions can fit comfortably into LDS theology, to the degree that their theology is sufficiently-developed to even address the question.
Finally, I'll end by remembering that it is Pope Blessed John Paul II who taught me that although politics can, to a limited degree, drive culture, if you let it, that ultimately, culture trumps politics, and ultimately, politics flows from culture. Working on politics can be an honorable thing to do, but working on culture is the more important thing to do.
In our country, we have entirely, completely forgotten this lesson, as we have allowed the minions of Satan to capture each one of our cultural institutions, one after the other, in turn. The Enemy understood the game much better than we did. We did not do our jobs.
sitetest
About leadership — this is quietism. Then more consistent would be to not participate in politics at all. Insofar as we live in a society at large, we have political movements and political movements are lead by men. That is what elections are about: choice between human leaders. Romney was not capable of leadership among Christian Conservatives.
If his Mormonism meshes in logically with being semi-pro-life, then well, another reason for Christians not to elect a Mormon.
About Darby, agree completely with your comments. A corollary, again, is that human leadership matters as we surely won’t want a racist leader at this point — because he very well may succeed.