A slew of conservative Republicans are coming out to harshly object to the idea of Condoleezza Rice as the running mate for Mitt Romney, saying her pro-choice views would make her unacceptable to the conservative base of the Republican Party.
When the story was first floated on the Drudge Report that Romney was considering the former Secretary of State as his running mate, some observers speculated that it perhaps was the Romney campaign’s way of sending up a trial balloon to see how the base would respond. Well, thanks to stories on sites like NewsMax, Romney is getting his answer. A very loud “No!”
Led by anti-abortion groups and pro-life leaders, the conservatives are sending the message to Romney that he would be in serious trouble with them were he to pick Rice.
Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told
Newsmax: “I contacted my contacts within the campaign and said, ‘You can’t do this.’”
Like a lot of conservatives, Land had positive things to say about Rice and said he would even like to see her get a major job in a Romney administration. Just not vice president.
“The key here is this is the first nomination in a proposed Romney administration,” he said, “and it cannot be someone who’s pro-choice, because that reactivates all the old doubts about whether pro-life is a preference, or a conviction, with the Romney administration.”
Fox News host and former GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee, who has been on many lists as a possible vice presidential contender, said it would be “a disaster” if Romney were to pick Rice.
“They’d sit on their hands,” Huckabee said of the conservatives in the party. “Absolutely they will.
Gary L. Bauer, president of the pro-life American Values organization, said he was unsure if Rice would have the personality to withstand attacks from the Obama campaign that he described as “the equivalent of a Chicago back-alley mugging”—which sounds vaguely like a possibly offensive racial reference.
“I think that requires a running mate that can give it as good as he or she takes it. You could say to her credit, that is not her image,” Bauer said. “And it doesn’t appear to be a style that she particularly wants, or an undertaking that she would covet… The effort to destroy her will be extraordinary by the left. It is something the campaign needs to weigh, and she needs to consider, if the offer is made.”
