Rick Perry seems to be trying--and not too convincingly--to walk back Robert Jeffress' claims that Mitt Romney is unworthy of his support because Romney's Mormon faith is a cult. Well, apparently Jeffress didn't get the memo. After introducing Romney at the Values Voter Summit, Jeffress went on Focal Point with Bryan Fischer and said that if Romney gets the GOP nod, a good number of fundies might stay home.
Jeffress quoted John Jay as saying that Christians have the duty to prefer other Christians as leaders--and that if all things were equal, he'd rather have a true born-again Christian as president. Fischer then suggested that as many as 27 percent of voters will not support an LDS presidential candidate. Jeffress thought it might be even higher than that since some people don't want to lie to pollsters.
If we needed more proof of just how soft Romney's support is, we just got it in spades.
Many of you don't know this, but Jeffress is a major, major player in the born-again world. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, the same church that was led for many years by W. A. Criswell. In a sense, Jeffress is going back to his church's historical roots--Criswell was one of the first Southern pastors to suggest that John F. Kennedy was unfit to be president because the Pope might have undue influence on him.