FoxNews is reporting that Dr. Don Wilton, pastor of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg and a former president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, is retracting his endorsement of presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Wilton said the endorsement — first announced by the Romney campaign last Friday — was a “mistake.”
“While I did give my consent to the local campaign to use my affirmation of the governor’s stance on family values in my capacity as an individual citizen, I made the mistake of not realizing the extent to which it would be used on a national basis,” Wilton told the news agency. “It was my personal error to agree to support Romney’s campaign. Until this incident I had never endorsed any person running for any elected office, Democrat or Republican.” [FoxNews]
On Friday, Wilton said, “I am proud to stand alongside Governor Romney as he pursues our nation’s highest office. His values are my values – protecting the sanctity of human life, defending marriage and strengthening the family.”
Team Romney, for their part, agreed to remove all references to Wilton or his endorsement.
So what changed in the last four days? Not sure. But Wilton might want to do a better job of thinking things through next time.
Would it be appropriate to say that some of his fellow Baptists might “give him hell” for this?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Primary Season, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
He may have withdrawn his “Endorsement”, but based upon his comments, you can bet he will still be voting for Romney in the election.
Basically, all he said was that as a Pastor, he probably shouldn’t be endorsing anyone and he only realized this after the fact. Next thing you know, TPS will be writing an article about how Mr Wilton is a “Flip Flopper” because after reflection and introspection, he changed his mind–even though the change was not in principle, but in practice.
…Or maybe he realized that endorsing Romney was one of the worst decisions of his life.
I was standing right next to the Pastor as he was being interviewed by a Spartanburg Herald-Journal reporter. He NEVER said he endorsed Romney even when asked point blank by the reporter. How the H-J reporter came away with a story that he endorsed Romeny is beyond me. The reporter asked him to compare the front runners, Guiliani and Romney.
Wilton said while he doesn’t agree with Romeny’s religion he at least has a deep seated faith whle Guiliani has, in his opinion, not faith or deeply held beliefs. That was the gist of the entire interview.
Now I wonder what Wilton would have said if say, the H-J reporter asked him to compare Romney and Mike Huckabee a baptist preacher running for president. Do you think it would have come out as an endorsement for Huckabee? Who konws how the H-J reporter interprets things?
GOPNRA,
The SHJ reporter didn’t just randomly assume Wilton was endorsing Romney. The Romney folks blasted out a release about it:
http://mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Endorsement_Wilton
I would say that release (also linked to in the story above) might give someone the idea that Wilton was endorsing Romney.
I note the title of one of his books”The Absolute Certaint of Lfie After Death” That should give some hope to failed candidates!
Looks like to me, that shady Warren Tompkins tried to pull a fast one on a preacher. He and his stooge Sullivan have no shame.
Those of you who think the Romney campaign just jumped on a few words to a reporter need to go back and read the whole story. Wilton admits that he reviewed his “endorsement” with the campaign before they released the statement and he agreed with the wording of it.
Also, since his retraction, the campaign has accepteed his wishes to withdraw any reference to his endorsement.
I’m amazed at how hard people look to find fault with someone simply because they don’t agree with their faith. Please folks, if you think you represent something better than Romney’s faith, why not act like it?
SC Conservative,
You’re just mad because you haven’t realized that backing Romney is one of the worst decisions in your life.
If an endorsement occurs in the forest and there is no one there to report it, is it really an endorsement?
It appears that Romney may be buying support.
Who is the Liberal,big spender, Giuliani or Romney?
Romney’s Campaign has spent almost twice as much as Giuliani and is $17.35 Million in debt. Giuliani’s debt is only $169 Thousand.
Reference http://www.electoral-vote.com/