Mitt-Mentum 2012!

Getting the feeling this time around that Mittens' Mormonism may not be the impediment it probably was last time around.

“A candidate for president of the United States should be capable of becoming president, and then competent to be the president,” DeMoss wrote in a five-page missive sent to about 200 top pastors, donors, intellectuals and leaders on the Christian right.

DeMoss, a public relations executive who also backed Romney in 2008, offered an impassioned case for the former Massachusetts governor but also took some barely-veiled swipes at Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

“Those who would suggest I am placing values on the back burner will be misreading me and wrong,” he wrote. “I am only saying that a candidate’s values alone are not enough to get my vote. For example, my pastor shares my values, but I don’t want him to be my president. (By the way, ‘energizing a crowd’ is also not enough; Justin Bieber can do that—but I don’t want him to be president either.)”

We also figure that as long as Romney mouths the politically proper boilerplate for the next yr. & change, nothing he did or professed prior to 2008 (Well, nothing beyond the usual crap about what a successful takeover artist he was.) will even be part of the primary equation, the Republican primary voter being what s/he is.

In broader terms (since the fugging election is 22 mos. away & to steal a bit more from POLITICO stealing from this DeMoss dude) how many low-info voters are interested in winning/governing? Sure, they're interested in campaigning, pissing off the liberals & all that, but will Romney's alleged competence & electability be seen as intolerable compromise by the bitter clinger?

DeMoss, who represents such leading evangelists as Franklin Graham, argued that most all of the likely Republican presidential candidates meet a values test so Christian conservatives should ask three other questions:

1. Who is most capable of winning the Republican nomination?

2. Who is most capable of mounting the kind of campaign (raising money, recruiting staff and volunteers, presenting a clear message) necessary to upset a sitting president?

3. Who is most capable of actually being the president of the United States—governing and serving as the CEO of the largest enterprises on the planet?

Romney, argued DeMoss, was well-positioned financially and in the polls to meet the electability standard and, because of his background in business, is up for the job.

So DeMoss urged the recipients of his documents to rally behind the former Massachusetts governor so as to create a sense of inevitability and increase his prospects against the well-funded President Obama.

“Realizing most of the people being mentioned as possible presidential candidates have little chance of winning a nomination given the compressed primary calendar and the high cost of competing, we can begin to mobilize support for one who can,” DeMoss wrote of Romney, who has yet to even announce his candidacy. “Realizing that fewer still have a realistic shot at defeating President Obama, we can give someone who does a quicker path to the nomination so he has more time to mobilize a general election campaign operation with a chance of winning.”

He continued: “This is essentially what happened for George W. Bush prior to the 2000 election cycle. He had so much early support and so many endorsements he was virtually unstoppable in his quest for the nomination—momentum which then carried him to victory over Al Gore.”

Yes, that & Supreme Court-mentum.

Another reason to get that Mitt money down now: Once the tea-bagging loons of the 112th Congress have done we can't imagine what, up to gov't. shutdowns & fucking w/ our Social Security, & have made idjits of themselves each & every time they foamed at their mouths, a candidate like Romney, who can afford handlers to keep the foaming internalized & maintain his perfect coiffure will be looking real good.