Yesterday I claimed that Mitt's better speech was given earlier in the fall at the Values Voters Summit. I was in the room when it was given - the air was electric. So much more well received than Huckabee's - AT the Evangelical's event.

All of that to reassert - yesterday's speech was unnecessary and perhaps damaging.

Mitt didn't have to explain his view of faith to me - what I needed to know was his value system - and he had already explained that in detail at VVS.

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PART 2


PART 3


And today's speech - both good speeches - but the VVS - no question attracts evangelicals far MORE effectively than this one:

"Fair is fair..."

I love it when Matt is blogging before noon... Two items you must not miss: 1. The Huck-Wagon responding to the speech that shall not be named anything less than magnificent... and 2. The accusations being leveled at Huck for being a religious nut...

Decent, patriotic, American... good enough!

Romney says that his faith informs his values, and I believe him. I also think he's generally right about the importance of faith in a free society. But, ultimately, I don't much care why he's a decent guy - I just care that he's decent.

Pretty much all that needed to be said... And I don't think that Jonah is untrustworthy for saying so!

GRAND SLAM!

"Look... up in the sky... it's the PaulPot Blimpy!"

I guess Ron Paul was somewhat in earnest when he claimed at the CNN YouTube debate that he had no idea how to spend all of the money his MoveOn.org supporters keep sending him. His volunteers have some ideas about how to spend their own cash...

So now they're resorting to getting the message out on a blimp...

Because so many voters pull the 'GoodYear' lever each election cycle...

Ridiculous... but very "PaulPot-ian!"

My new online addiction...

"Why the double standard Ms. Clinton?"

From David Frum's Diary on the National Review Online...

Sorry to dissent from my colleagues on the Corner, but once the murmurs over the oratory subside, people are going to realize: that speech did not work. Here's why:

"There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance."

To be blunt, Romney is saying:

It is legitimate to ask a candidate, "Is Jesus the son of God?"

But it is illegitimate to ask a candidate, "Is Jesus the brother of Lucifer?"

It is hard for me to see a principled difference between these two questions, and I think on reflection that the audiences to whom Romney is trying to appeal will also fail to see such a difference. Once Romney answered any question about the content of his religious faith, he opened the door to every question about the content of his religious faith. This speech for all its eloquence will not stanch the flow of such questions.

Bad move - and one with very unfair results to a candidate who all must acknowledge is a man who has proven that his mind actually operates in a highly empirical, data-driven, and uncredulous way.

Had he focused instead on simply arguing that presidents need only prove themselves loyal to American values, he would have been on safe ground. Instead, he over-reached, super-adding to his civic appeal an additional appeal to voters who demand faith in Jesus as a requirement in a president. That is an argument that will not work - and a game Mitt Romney cannot win.

"Trustworthy?"

The list grows that Hugh is chiding into agreeing with himself... more names added to the blacklist...Mark Levin, Tom Bevan, James Joyner, Captain Ed, Bob Novak, Paul Edwards, TH's Matt Lewis, Fred Barnes, TH's Mary Katharine Ham, Byron York, TH's Bill Bennett, Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnuru, and me Kevin McCullough...

I mean its not like any of those of us listed above have said anything near the likes of Brian Camenker, Sandy Rios, or Gregg Jackson...Though in fairness to Hugh - he did do a MAJOR retreat in rhetoric this afternoon:

"Of course there are some nay-sayers. There always are. I don't trust their judgment about the campaign at this point if they didn't think the speech was at least very good."

Which is a WHOLE FREAKIN WORLD OF DIFFERENCE from:

"Mitt Romney's 'Faith in America' speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst."

I've seen a number of people - including myself who have said they believed it was a great speech. My beef with it was that it need not be given and that it might open up more issues than it resolves.

It certainly has amongst pundits who will need to all be on the same side in about 10 months or so...

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2pm:
Mitt Romney did what even some in his own campaign were encouraging him NOT to do. I think the speech was unnecessary. I believe it had something good to say. I believe it said things it did not need to. The question becomes the expectation of how much it will benefit his poll numbers if at all... I'm not hopeful on those numbers. I like Mitt Romney. He's been on my show three times, and we expect to have him again soon. But this speech did not hit what evangelicals were looking for - and that I fear was the only thing he was hoping to accomplish. 800.345.WMCA.

3pm:
Our girls look to the pop culture icons of the day for their own sense of body image. That's why I'm not all that convinced that Jennifer Love Hewitt's tirade at the paprazzi resonates with all that much meaning. Now that the starlet is beginning to age, put on a pound or two, she is screaming at the paparazzi for snapping her pic looking less than the cover girl she was a couple of years ago. Truth is she did several dozen covers begging for the publicity and attention that she now has benefitted from. One less than flattering photograph and it's an argument about her right to privacy. Our daughters are told to admire her willingness to stand up to the media. Yet it is the media that made her. So the mixed messages confuse our daughters today. We need to help them establish a view of themselves based on different criteria. 800.345.WMCA.

3:55pm: The McCULLOUGH PUNCH
It's not bigotry to disagree with me!

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"You don't say... ahead by 7% huh?"

A week ago he took the lead in Iowa from Romney. Yesterday he wrestled the polling lead from Giuliani nationally. Today he lapped Thompson and Romney in South Carolina - moving up 15% points to a 7% lead in Gamecock country...

Full disclosure - I have NOT yet endorsed any candidate in the GOP Primary...

Hugh's opening statement of analysis on Mitt's SPEECH!

Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst.

Hugh - that's simply ridiculous! ALL of the pundits above said something in a major or minor way that was negative/critical of the speech. It wasn't Mitt at his best. But it wasn't a big negative either.

Whereas his speech at Values Voters was brilliant both in tone and depth. In fact Mitt got greater response at Values Voters than Huckabee - who was in fact THE evangelical at THE evangelical event!

And as I pointed out in my very MILD critique of what I believed to be the weak spot in the speech you hard core partisans had better stop the "you can't be trusted if you disagree with me" or "you should vote only based on this criteria" or "you're a big fat poopie-head" stuff.

For the record - I have NOT endorsed a candidate - and am STILL not sure I've even decided upon one.

I don't take it well when I'm told that I'm a less trustworthy observer of events than someone else - merely because I didn't see it through the same glasses as someone who is at best - a tad bit beholden to the candidate in question...

I do not define my candidacy by my religion.  A person should not be elected
because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.

Here is the mega-million problem with the inclusion of this line within the text of the speech... Romney runs the risk of sounding nanny-ish in chiding the voter into what the "should" or "should not" do. Americans vote in this nation for many, many reasons.

Here Romney is attempting to goad evangelicals into feeling guilty for choosing Huckabee because they perhaps feel more comfortable with his decision making process knowing it utilizes a faith system that mirrors their own... There is nothing inherently negative in that rationale.

What Romney should have emphasized instead was that since the core values product of his belief system mirrors the same RESULTS as an evangelical then evangelicals having nothing to fear in choosing to support him.

I would have to also guess that this is one heck of a disengenious line that overreached on a significant level for the Governor (and keep in mind my admiration for Mitt).  But would not it be enough to disqualify a person for the office of President - if per se their religion of choice was Wicken, or Satanism?

Would Americans be completely comfortable accepting a Wahabi Muslim as a candidate?

Using the perjorative of "should/should not" was unnecessary and WILL be one of the soundbytes that gets extensive discussion in the long tail of the blogosphere, broadcast, and print media...

I think this line hurt him a bit...

"Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other
church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential
decisions.  Their authority is theirs, within the province of church
affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin."

In this zinger - he sums up all he needed to say. It's the basic jist of "you have nothing to worry about" but with some meat on the bones of it. By far the strongest, most direct, simple to understand note of unification he could pronounce in the speech!

Ok is it just me or does O'Reilly seem to sometimes seem a bit creepy and unbelievable?

What is exceptionally non-credible here is his ignorance on the slang term to copulate with someone else's maternal unit. NO ONE on the planet thinks O'Reilly honestly didn't KNOW what the term was. What is sad here is that MKH is brought on to be O'Reilly's Internet Cop - and the MILF story BARELY qualifies as internet news in any shape or fashion. I mean I don't think the kiddies are out there surfing an airline's price page for naughty air travel deals...

Some of the commenters at HA incredibly attempted to pin the stupidity of topic selection on MKH... To which Allah roundly rebuked them. Also notice Michelle weighed in. (No doubt from having to see herself sit through more than one O'Reilly B-roll Booty Call...)

And didn't anyone catch MKH's raised eyebrow of disapproval when the subject was brought up?

The far more beneficial portion of the discussion dealt with the Jennifer Love Hewitt incident where the actress bit back against those who have recently written disparagingly of her bikini photos from her recent vacation in Hawaii.

I've sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women's bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I'm not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image...

...What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

Interestingly enough the Lovely Bride and I sat talking about this very issue almost exactly 24 hours previously. If we are to parent daughters someday we - like all parents will have to face the issue of how we allow our girl to view herself, her body, her image... And its on that level that I think JLH's argument kind of falls apart.

Sure I think its repugnant that the paprazzi won't leave people alone, and YES JLH should have the right to get as "big" or "curvy" or whatever else she feels comfortable with (and if she cares... how her fiance feels as well.)

But my problem is - when did she flip the switch and suddenly begin shunning attention. After all JLH used to make it common fodder to jokingly refer to her "girls" on daytime talk shows, and other times espousing the virtues of virginity. To say she has consistently been one big mixed message would be an understatement.

And it seems a bit disingenious to scream foul for this:

After begging for the attention of this... for a good number of years leading up to it...

Obviously her previous modeling gigs don't dictate a lack of privacy now, but her privacy certainly didn't seem to be something JLH was overly concerned about when she was "on the rise..."