Romney picks up endorsements from chancellor and dean at Bob Jones University

[Lobster Martini]

(LM: This is a surprise. I’d have wagered on Fred Thompson being the darling of Bob Jones University.)

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.

<snip>

"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."

<snip>

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.

<snip>

(link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071023/ap_po/romney_evangelicals;_ylt=AgKbMHEgRIikT9VPISMM2.6s0NUE)

[scarface2004]

1. great...i hear the illinois nazis are also going to endorse

this asshole!!

[TwilightGardener]

2. His poll numbers are up in SC. Don't know why.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Isn't it prophesied that the antichrist will be popular with the faithful?

[TwilightGardener]

4. LOL! He does remind me of Damien in "Omen 3"...

[Lobster Martini]

5. Reminds me of the guy who played a demon on "Charmed"

I can't remember his name but I think he now plays a self-absorbed, polygamous plastic surgeon on another show, which seems curiously apt.