Evangelical Christian leaders on Sunday praised Mitt Romney’s outreach to Christian conservatives at Liberty University this weekend, saying that he hit all the right notes and that he’ll likely do well with Christians come November.
“I think Mitt Romney will do very well among Christians,” said Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a prominent voice in the evangelical community, on CNN’s State of the Union.
Romney’s address at Liberty University’s commencement this weekend has been widely praised as a solid address to evangelical Christians, a voting bloc that Romney failed to win over in the primaries. Liberty University, founded by evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell, was a strong platform from which to engage in that outreach.
“I think he hit just the right tone,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said on CNN. “He did talk about the differences, and you can't gloss over the theological differences between the Mormon faith and evangelicals, but he zeroed in on the common values. I think he helped his campaign tremendously yesterday at Liberty.”
Perkins said that Romney’s campaign was also helped by Obama’s announcement on Tuesday that he supports same-sex marriage.
“I've gotten calls from pastors across the nation, white and black pastors, who have said, ‘You know what? I'm not sitting on the sidelines any longer,’” he said.
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