A Whole New Ballgame

by A.B. Stoddard - 10/12/07 11:22 AM ET

I guess it’s time to take Mitt Romney seriously again. It’s hard to believe, but the guy could actually take it. While Rudy Giuliani owns the national polls for now — and the Tommy Thompson endorsement as well — Romney is seeing the fruits of his labor in the early-primary states and now leads in Iowa and New Hampshire. It is consequential; momentum from victories there could knock Rudy right out of that big blue- and purple-state sweep he is planning for Feb. 5.

Add to this the big score on Giuliani’s biggest liability, the social conservatives threatening a third-party candidate. This week Mark DeMoss, a conservative Christian publicist whose clients include the Rev. Franklin Graham, wrote 150 Christian leaders a five-page letter urging them to “galvanize support around Mitt Romney, so Mr. Giuliani isn’t the unintended beneficiary of our divided support among several candidates.” Or, “worse yet,” he warned, “so we don’t abdicate the presidency (and the future of the Supreme Court) over to Hillary Clinton.”

All along Republicans have warned Romney that the faithful wouldn’t accept his faith — that the Christian right would never come around to accepting his Mormon religion. It’s hard to see why this shift would happen now, only out of panic. But what if it does? If the conservative Christian coalition backs Romney, with enough enthusiasm, we have a whole new ballgame on our hands.

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WHO THINKS WE ARE LOOKING AT A ROMNEY v. CLINTON RACE NEXT YEAR? Send your thoughts and questions about all of this to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com and join me on ASK A.B., my weekly Q & A video, next Monday.