There's a certain high drama to all this. The faith-bashing story was broken by Jonathan Martin of Politico.com earlier in the week. Undoubtedly, there's going to be a large-scale effort by reporters to find out just who sponsored and authored the anti-Mormon push-polling in Iowa. There are rumors going around, but I'm not going to speculate. And neither is Romney. His is an issue-oriented campaign, and he's very content to stick to the issues.
For instance, on the economy, Romney said he didn't foresee a recession. But he did point out that all the Democratic candidates at Thursday night's debate talked about raising taxes. This would be the worst thing to do right now, Romney said. Instead, he is strongly in favor of cutting the corporate tax, and he expressed disbelief that Washington has so far failed to patch the alternative minimum tax, which could affect 20 million Americans.
Romney was particularly harsh in criticizing Hillary Clinton on her general proposition that the Bush tax cuts have helped the rich but harmed the middle class. He noted that these tax cuts, which included a child tax credit, were across-the-board -- to the benefit of all income-tax payers.
This was vintage, well-versed Romney. He also called for long-run solutions to solve the $100-a-barrell oil problem, although he doesn't believe the CAFE fuel-standards system, which would place a huge burden on domestic car makers, should be singled out as a one-shot solution (as proposed in a California court decision).
Romney was fluent in all areas of public policy, and we could have talked all night. Still, there's no question that the attacks on his religion stuck in his craw.
Who can blame him? Mitt Romney stands up for what he believes in, and in our time together he proved yet again that he has the right stuff.