Romney finds Christian support in S.C. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has been embraced in a most unlikely place: at Bob Jones University, the influential Christian college that teaches that his Mormon church is a cult.
In early-voting South Carolina, Romney has picked up support among the evangelicals and social conservatives who are a political force.
Last week, Romney won the endorsements of Bob Jones III and Robert Taylor, the founder's grandson and a top dean respectively here at Bob Jones University.
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"It's hard to see, but I think that they just realized that he's the best of a bad lot. I hate to say it that way," said Dave Woodard, a longtime GOP activist and political science professor at Clemson University.
(LM: There’s a resounding endorsement. I doubt Romney’s press release will use that quote.) <snip>
In endorsing Romney, Taylor said he and Chancellor Bob Jones III looked past their belief that Mormons, as well as Catholics, belong to a "cult." Taylor said among evangelicals, the term more broadly applies to what they consider non-Christian theologies, not the more popular understanding of allegiance to a domineering figurehead.
Jones, who had laryngitis and could not be interviewed by the AP, told the Greenville News: "As a Christian, I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism. But I'm not voting for a preacher; I'm voting for a president."
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In exit polls for the 2004 general election, 88 percent of white voters in South Carolina who described themselves as evangelicals or born-again Christians said they voted for President Bush, while only 11 percent voted for Democrat John Kerry.
More recently, data from three recent AP-Ipsos polls showed that among born-again Christians, 22 percent said they'd vote for Thompson, 17 percent for Giuliani and 13 percent for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Romney was at 8 percent, essentially tied with Huckabee, who had 9 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had 8 percent.
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(link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071023/ap_po/romney_evangelicals;_ylt=AgKbMHEgRIikT9VPISMM2.6s0NUE)