Romney camp looks to rally Christian conservatives

Even before Rick Santorum announced April 10 that he was dropping his presidential bid, Mark DeMoss was fielding calls from religious conservatives who sensed that the end was nigh and were eager to set up meetings with Romney.

DeMoss, an evangelical public relations executive and a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, also said that immediately after Romney’s latest primary victories he got a call from a prominent evangelical who wanted to organize a summit with other Christian conservatives to start rallying support for Romney for the fall campaign. If and when that meeting comes off, it would represent a marked counterpoint to conservative conclaves earlier this year that strongly backed Santorum.

In an op-ed in USA Today published April 2, Richard Land, the top public policy official for the Southern Baptist Convention and no fan of Romney, wrote that Romney’s nomination is inevitable and explained why evangelicals would rally behind him.