In twist, evangelicals now backing Mitt Romney<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"D.J. Moberley, a 30-year-old evangelical Christian, seems an unlikely cog in the effort to elect Mitt Romney as president. He has no ties to the campaign,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/10\/in-twist-evangelicals-now-backing-mitt-romney.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In twist, evangelicals now backing Mitt Romney\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"D.J. Moberley, a 30-year-old evangelical Christian, seems an unlikely cog in the effort to elect Mitt Romney as president. 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{"id":1800,"date":"2012-10-14T17:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T17:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/10\/in-twist-evangelicals-now-backing-mitt-romney.html"},"modified":"2012-10-14T17:07:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T17:07:00","slug":"in-twist-evangelicals-now-backing-mitt-romney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/10\/in-twist-evangelicals-now-backing-mitt-romney.html","title":{"rendered":"In twist, evangelicals now backing Mitt Romney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Nonetheless, the real estate appraiser spends hours chatting with his 900 Facebook friends and talking with fellow church members about Romney, all part of his effort to convince evangelicals who have qualms about Mormonism that they should support the former Massachusetts governor. Many other evangelicals are making similar efforts across the country. Therein lies one of the more unlikely stories of this year\u2019s presidential campaign: evangelicals, some of whom played a role in Romney\u2019s defeat in 2008, and nearly upset his effort in 2012, are now a vital part of Romney\u2019s hope to win in Virginia and several other swing states where evangelicals are a major constituency.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cRomney is counting on evangelicals. The irony is that this is a shotgun marriage between two very different religions but they are completely dependent upon one another for victory,\u201d said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia\u2019s Center for Politics. Romney\u2019s increasing reliance on evangelicals is on display across Virginia. Earlier this year, Romney spoke before 32,000 people in the evangelical heart of the state, Liberty University in Lynchburg. That appearance reverberated at evangelical churches across Virginia, including the one that Moberley attends. Moberley\u2019s decision to promote Romney is a telling slice of the story about efforts to win over evangelicals.<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"