Rick Santorum — unsurprisingly — has won the key endorsement of a huge group of over one-hundred Evangelical leaders and organizations, including those prominently featured as certified anti-gay hate groups. like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council. Santorum took the endorsement after the group, which The New Civil Rights Movement reported on recently, voted in secret ballot three times, winning 115 of the 150 votes cast. Newt Gingrich took the balance of the votes.
Among those in attendance were Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Don Wildmon, future FEC potential investigatee Bob Vander Plaats, and many others, all convening at retired Judge Paul Pressler’s Texas ranch. Notably, the consortium did not even consider Texas Governor Rick Perry after the first around of voting.
“On Saturday morning, they voted, and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkinsheld a call to debrief the media. He saw white smoke,” Dave Weigel of Slate reported:
“What I did not think was possible appears to be possible,” said Perkins. After three rounds of balloting, “there emerged a strong consensus around Rick Santorum as the preferred candidate of this room.” It was a “clear, clear majority,” 115 out of 150, by the time other candidates were dropped off the ballot.
What did it mean? No one was calling for Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich to leave the race, even though the assemblenge included supporters of both candidates. “That,” said Perkins, “was not even part of the discussion.” There would not, officially, be some new campaign for Santorum by a union of these evangelicals. “It will not be a coordinated effort,” said Perkins.
Apparently, there is some confusion about the actual vote count, with the L.A. Times reporting, “Santorum [won] 85 votes in the final round, to Newt Gingrich’s 29.”
The Times called the vote “an effort to avoid a repeat of 2008, when social conservatives failed to rally behind a single Republican presidential candidate.”
“The focus here was on people putting aside their preferences, putting aside the candidate they had signed up with, trying to reach a consensus,†Perkins said.
“Rick Santorum has consistently articulated the issues that are of concern to conservatives, both the economic and the social, and has woven those into a very solid platform,†Perkins said. “And he has a record of stability…He’s reliable.â€
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Of frontrunner Mitt Romney, Perkins said there was “not a lot of time spent†discussing his candidacy.
“It was more a discussion of the positives of the conservative candidates and their vision for the future,†Perkins said. “It was not a bash Mitt Romney weekend…but it’s not news that there is not strong support among conservatives for Mitt Romney.â€