Romney’s Real Audience

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Yesterday, John Podhoretz made this bizarre statement on Gov. Romney’s “Faith in America” speech:

For those who don’t know Romney is a Mormon, well, they sure will now. For the next two or three days, it’s all anybody will know about him. Chances are it is the word that people will most associate with him from here on out. I don’t think that’s a good direction for a campaign that finds itself in the fight of its life in Iowa against the most explicitly Christian candidate in the field.

Huh!?!? If anyone who didn’t know until yesterday that Romney was a Mormon, they weren’t paying attention to the campaign and won’t start now.  Forget the next few days, for the past year the media’s portrayal of Gov. Romney has been relentless reporting that Romney’s biggest challenge is that he’s a Mormon which could only be removed by making some JFK-type speech. 

(I actually believe that the Governor’s biggest problem is his perceived “inaunthenticity” and supposed flip-flopping, which he hasn’t been able to deal with very well due to the oppressive religious coverage.  The Evangelical acceptance of a Mormon candidate is overplayed by a media herd-mentality eager to pick a fight.)

Romney didn’t add anything new yesterday that he hasn’t said in countless interviews before.  However, instead of speaking to one reporter, Romney spoke on a national platform.  Now when some lazy reporter decides to recycle the Mormon Question, the Romney campaign can at least point back to yesterday and say “been there, done that.” 

Conventional wisdom has it that yesterday’s speech was an appeal to Evangelicals to accept a Mormon candidate.  But most Evangelicals who weren’t willing to accept Romney before, probably aren’t willing to today.   Romney’s biggest accomplishment was telling the media to back off and drop the daily coverage of his faith.

Yesterday, Romney Campaign 2.0 was launched.  He may not have added anything new of substance to his campaign, but he sounded presidential, perhaps authentic.  And instead of becoming the “Mormon” candidate like Podhoretz suggests, he’s done his best to level the playing field and leave the “Mormon” tag behind.