News for Mormons

From RushLimbaugh.com:

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RUSH: We welcome to the EIB Network Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is in New York at this hour. Governor, welcome to the program.

HUCKABEE: Thank you very much, Rush. It’s been a long time, and I’ve been listening to you for many years. You’re a great American.

RUSH: Thank you. So are you, sir. Now let’s get right to the chase here. I said something a couple weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, about you and Governor Romney that you strenuously objected to. What was it that I said that was incorrect?

HUCKABEE: Well, that I had made an issue out of his religion and had sort of poisoned him with evangelicals and that’s simply not true. You know, one of the things that I’ve been very adamant about is that I don’t think his religion has one thing to do with whether people should support him. Some of my favorite public servants in America happen to be the same religion he is, the Morman religion. That would be people like Mike Leavitt, Orrin Hatch, Jon Huntsman, the current governor of Utah. Great people. It has nothing to do with it.

RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not running for president nor running against you for the nomination. I guess I track this back to at one point you talking about what Romney believes, that Christ and Lucifer were brothers.

HUCKABEE: It was a question that I actually asked of the New York Times Magazine writer, because he knew a lot more about Mormonism than I did. It appeared as 11 words in about a 10,000-word story, and that got all the play. I personally apologized to Mitt because it did come across wrong and it’s simply not the way I feel and it isn’t, and I don’t think Mitt Romney’s religion has a thing to do with it. I think, you know, a record has to do with it, but not his religion. And frankly, my attitude is, the primary’s over, we need to get behind John McCain, support him, He’s our best chance, right now, our only chance to beat Barack Obama, and Barack Obama will destroy small business, his plans for higher taxes would be abominable, and his absolutely frankly deplorable view about when life begins is nothing short of frightening.

RUSH: Well, he’s got a Pelosi problem on that. You know, she’s been denounced by as many Catholic Church leaders as have chosen to speak out on it and she’s standing by it. You know, these people are sitting ducks I think if the Republican campaign is run the right way. Are you on the vice presidential short list?

HUCKABEE: I don’t even think I’m on the long list. I have not been asked to pack a bag to go to Dayton on Friday so I don’t think there’s any illusion. If he’s looking for a female, the closest I would get is if they would ask me to maybe dress in drag and run that way but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so, no, I don’t think I’m on the list at all.

RUSH: Who do you think is going to be named? Do you have any inside information?

HUCKABEE: No. Nothing inside. I don’t have a clue. I mean he may throw the long ball and pick somebody like a Frank Keating, somebody that hadn’t even been talked about because everybody’s focused on a handful of names and, you know, McCain just might shock the daylights out of all of us.

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From AJC.com:

DENVER — Mitt Romney’s mission was clear: Crash the party of the Democratic National Convention, attack Barack Obama mercilessly, and defend the message of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

But wherever Romney went Tuesday, from a downtown luncheon with several dozen reporters, to the Republican Party’s “Not Ready ‘08” news conference, he faced questions about whether his primary-campaign attacks on McCain will hurt his chances to become the vice presidential nominee. Romney’s responses, monitored by McCain’s aides, sometimes sounded like a dress rehearsal for the job.

Romney was clearly prepared for the questions, parrying with jokes and smiles whenever he was reminded of his criticism of McCain. But in at least one instance he may have overreached.

Asked how many houses he owned - in light of Democrats lampooning McCain for not being able to say last week how many he had - Romney responded, “one less than John Kerry,” holding up four fingers. At a lunch sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, Romney said that while McCain deserved his houses because of the “hard work” of himself and his family, “Barack Obama got a special deal from a convicted felon.”

Romney was referring to Tony Rezko, a political fixer in Chicago and former Obama fund-raiser who was convicted by a federal jury in June on corruption charges. Obama bought a piece of land from Rezko’s wife to expand the yard of his $1.65 million Chicago home while Rezko was under federal investigation - a deal that Obama later said was a “bone-headed move,” given the cloud that was already surrounding his former patron.

There is no evidence, however, that the Obamas got any “special deal” engineered by Rezko. Obama was able to buy the house because of two best-selling books and the six-figure salaries he and his wife were both earning.

Romney was in Denver to provide Republican counter-programming, part of a sophisticated rapid-response operation run jointly by the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee in offices about a mile from the Democrats’ gathering.

Another Republican vice presidential prospect, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, is slated to appear here Thursday. McCain is expected to appear with his new running mate Friday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, setting the stage for next week’s GOP convention in St. Paul.

Romney spent much of the day appearing delighted at the job of designated attack dog. After making the now-common Republican charge that Obama is too inexperienced to be president, Romney seemed to take particular delight in blasting the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Senator Joe Biden. “As you stand back and look at Joe Biden, you see someone who has spent 30 years dealing with foreign policy, but has usually been wrong for 30 years,” Romney said. He cited examples of Biden’s opposition to the surge of US troops in Iraq and Biden’s proposal to have a quasi-partition of Iraq, with states of Kurds, Shi’ites, and Sunnis.

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From NBC4.com (Columbus, OH):

An initiative to lower the legal drinking age is gaining some attention — by at least one heavyweight Central Ohio name.

Dr. E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State University, is one of 100 college presidents who have signed on with the Amethyst Initiative that blames binge drinking on the legal drinking age.

According to the university, Gee doesn’t necessarily think the drinking age should be lowered, but that policies need to be reviewed.

Gee told NBC 4’s Mikaela Hunt in a one-on-one interview on Tuesday that it’s not that current drinking laws aren’t working. Instead, Gee is worried that the country might be driving underage kids “underground” to drink and then causing a host of other problems.

When asked what he would tell parents who may be concerned with his stance, he provided a few personal observations.

First, Gee said he wanted to be clear that he is not advocating drinking. He just wants a discussion.

“There’s no one better to talk about this because I’m a devout Mormon and I’ve never had a drop of alcohol in my life. It’s not about my desire to see people drink. It’s about my desire to have a conversation,” he said. “There’s going to be some concern, maybe even some upset parents about what we’re talking about. I would tell them that I think it’s important to have these conversations because I think we can improve the quality of life of students by having it.”

But Nationwide Insurance said a recent study it conducted shows that 72 percent of adults say lowering the drinking age to 18 would make alcohol more accessible to kids and nearly half said it would increase binge drinking among teenagers.

Also according to the survey, 74 percent of those questioned said they want more enforcement of laws that keep alcohol away from the underaged.

“Coming up with solutions that work to lower the drinking problem is certainly something we should be talking about. Lowering the drinking age is not one of those solutions,” said Bill Windsor, Nationwide associate vice president of safety.

Gee began his second point by discussing his son-in-law’s recent death after a scooter accident.

Although the crash was not alcohol-related, investigators are trying to determine if his helmet situation played a role in his death. Gee said that just because they’re looking into the helmet doesn’t mean he will take an absolute stance on helmets. He just wants a discussion, like with the drinking age.

As for the impact on OSU, with any change in law, Gee said he simply doesn’t know what will happen on campus — which is another reason to begin the discussion.

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