The Prospects

By Michael Luo

updated 8:30 a.m. ET Aug. 16, 2008

On the day Mitt Romney bowed out of the presidential race last February, his supporters latched onto something of a consolation prize that appeared to bode well for his political future: the warm embrace of hundreds of conservatives whose seal of approval he had long sought.

The enthusiastic ovations Mr. Romney received before and after his speech ending his campaign at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington seemed to signal that he had finally overcome skepticism many conservatives harbored about him and become a a bona fide standard-bearer for their movement.

Yet as Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is said to have emerged as a top contender to be Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, a vocal segment of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists have mobilized against him, with some going out of their way to block his path to the Republican ticket.

It is unclear just how large the group of Romney detractors is and how representative it is of the broader conservative movement. Many are evangelicals who flocked to one of Mr. Romney’s rivals in the Republican primaries, Mike Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor whose own hopes for making a repeat presidential run in 2012 or 2016 could suffer if Mr. Romney were named to the ticket.

Indeed, Mr. Huckabee himself aimed a few jabs at Mr. Romney this week, arguing that he would make an unacceptable vice-presidential pick because of his shifting positions on several issues.

Nevertheless, the determined opposition to Mr. Romney highlights the nagging concerns about his ideological authenticity — and his Mormon religion — that dogged him throughout his primary campaign. It also illuminates the continuing unease Mr. McCain arouses among some evangelicals and other social conservatives who make up an important voting bloc of the Republican base.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has seemed to be weighing whether to pick a running mate who would help him shore up his ties to his party’s conservative base or to make an unconventional choice who could help him attract independents.

But after Mr. McCain said this week in an interview with The Weekly Standard that he might consider a supporter of abortion rights as his running mate, like former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, conservative leaders responded with a torrent of criticism, warning that such a decision would be disastrous for the party’s chances in the fall.

Mr. McCain’s floating of Mr. Ridge’s name — and the backlash that ensued — could actually make the selection of Mr. Romney more palatable. Mr. Romney’s fluency on economic matters and his family ties to Michigan, a crucial swing state, are considered assets in his favor.

Mr. Romney’s staff sought from the beginning of his presidential campaign to position him as the most electable conservative candidate in the field. But even some of his closest advisers conceded they might have overcompensated while trying to paper over some of the more moderate views he espoused in the past. The dissonance led to accusations of flip-flopping from Mr. Romney’s opponents.

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Toward the end of Mr. Romney’s run, however, with the momentum clearly behind Mr. McCain, a growing chorus of conservative voices began to rally to Mr. Romney, with talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh talking him up, and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham endorsing him ahead of the crush of states that voted on Feb. 5. The support proved to be too late, but Mr. Romney’s supporters took heart, looking ahead to another run in four or eight years.

“The problem was not that it didn’t gel,” said James Bopp Jr., an anti-abortion activist and lawyer who was among several leading conservatives who endorsed Mr. Romney early on. “The problem was it gelled too late.”

Several evangelical and conservative leaders said they believed that Romney detractors were a relatively small faction, contending that he remained acceptable to most. But others said that the hostility toward Mr. Romney in their ranks was much more widespread. They suggested evangelicals might be more open to potential candidates like Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, although he remains an unknown quantity to many, or, better yet, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

“I think when you look at Mitt Romney, he’s not in the totally uncomfortable column, but he’s not in the completely comfortable column, so he’s kind of in between,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. “Those that do have opposition to him, they’re pretty adamant in their opposition.”

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