Mitt Romney hasn’t got a prayer.
That is, if the most prominent evangelical leaders in the country — who are holding crisis talks next weekend in Texas over the thinning herd of viable GOP challengers — have anything to say about it.
“I was asked to be a convener, part of the people who called the meeting,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, adding that he declined due to a scheduling conflict.
“It’s not fair to characterize it as a ‘Stop Romney’ meeting,” Perkins said. “It’s a meeting over who is acceptable and who is not. People are looking for a true conservative.”
To go by the polls and opinion columns and general consensus, Romney is considered a shape-shifter whose core beliefs resemble President Obama’s.
There’s no such discomfort with Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic. He is against abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. He’s also a proponent of intelligent design, against homosexuality and contraception, and opposed to immigration reform.
“Rick Santorum has a consistent record,” said Gary Bauer, president of the nonprofit conservative group American Values and co-host of next weekend’s summit. “To state the obvious, conservatives have had a hard time coalescing around a candidate.”
Yet with Romney on a fast track — having won the Iowa caucuses and going into New Hampshire with a luxurious 24-point lead and South Carolina with a small lead — the meeting’s only agenda is to anoint an alternative candidate.