** FILE ** Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum speaks at a campaign ... more >“Congratulations to Rick Santorum,” Mr. Watts said. “It is a very strong sign for the GOP that Gingrich and Santorum were separated by only nine votes on the first ballot cast today. Both candidates have friends in the evangelical community who are committed to helping nominate a conservative.” But, Mr. Watts added, “It is clear that 100 percent of those attending are not for Gov. Mitt Romney, but are splintered in whether to support Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.”
Mr. Watts, for a time the only black conservative in the House, called it “misleading for the Santorum campaign to claim they won the endorsement of 150 evangelical leaders.”
Mr. Perkins‘ Family Research Council said in a statement late Saturday night that the “agreed-to threshold for support of the group was two-thirds of those present. That threshold was surpassed on the third ballot when Rick Santorum gained 74.5 percent of the vote and Newt Gingrich received 25.5 percent.”
The FRC statement said that from “the outset, the stated goal of the meeting was to attempt to arrive at a consensus or a clear majority of support for a single conservative candidate.
“That goal was achieved. While a supermajority of those attending the meeting stated support for Rick Santorum as their preference in the Republican primary, it was also made clear that conservative leaders could coalesce around any of the three presidential candidates who had strong representation at the meeting: Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.”
The FRC said these numbers represented the ballot results:
First Ballot
Ron Paul 1
Mitt Romney 3
Rick Perry 13
Newt Gingrich 48
Rick Santorum 57
Second Ballot (two top vote recipients)
Mr. Gingrich 49
Mr. Santorum 70
Third Ballot
Mr. Gingrich 29
Mr. Santorum 85
The attendees had agreed after the first ballot that only the top two vote getters would be on the second ballot, in an effort to achieve the maximum possible appearance of coalescence around a single candidate to stop Mr. Romney’s winning the GOP presidential nomination.
At the meeting, Doug Wead, presidential historian and adviser to President George H.W. Bush, spoke on behalf of Texas Rep. Ron Paul. But at one point Mr. Wead told his fellow evangelicals that the reason Mr. Paul and Mr. Romney and their backers spent an estimated $3 million on anti-Gingrich ads leading up to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses is that they perceive the former House speaker as the only real threat.
None of the top contenders is an evangelical. Mr. Romney is a Mormon, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum are Catholics, and Mr. Paul is a Baptist.
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Chief political writer Ralph Z. Hallow served on the Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Washington Times editorial boards, was Ford Foundation Fellow in Urban Journalism at Northwestern University, resident at Columbia University Editorial-Page Editors Seminar and has filed from Berlin, Bonn, London, Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Belgrade, Bucharest, Panama and Guatemala.
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