Sherry Chandler

So. On Thursday, Mitt Romney is going to give his John F. Kennedy speech, the one intended to calm fears about his religion.

The problem for Romney seems to me to be that the audience he most has to convince, the Christian right (so-called evangelicals), are the least likely to be convinced.

Kennedy basically had to convince liberals and liberals are, well, liberal on these questions. Not so, I think, the social conservatives.

To quote the Bible Belt Blogger:

Here’s my prediction. The speech will be carefully prepared and carefully focus-grouped and the New York Times will praise it lavishly. Unfortunately, for Gov. Romney, it’s pretty much irrelevant whether or not the New York Times likes it. Gov. Romney doesn’t need to sway a Manhattan editorial board [especially in the Republican primaries...] He needs to sway evangelical and born again Christians. They’re the ones who need convincing right now.

Close that Door!

To open my mouth is to boast of the south,
And it’s glorious virtues extol,
For strongly I feel from the shape of the wheel
It was meant not to slide, but to roll.

To a child of the north it’s different, of course
To abide where the chilly winds blow.
It’s all in their genes and livers and spleens,
And akin, they are born to the snow.

To a fellow like you it’s strange and it’s new,
It’s alien, foreign, and weird.
The boots and the mack on your feet, and your back,
And the icicles weighing your beard.

How can you dwell in that constant cold spell
Where a B.T.U. can’t be found;
Your ears and your nose are as cold as your toes
And fuel oil is kept underground?

Come stay with me in the land of the bee,
And the bird and the butterfly,
Where the winter wind chill is practically nil,
And clouds seldom frown from the sky.

Your plot lies so lush, so green and so plush
In the shade of a mighty white oak,
Where a thermostat is an item that
Is quickly dismissed as a joke.

If longing, you are, for a glimpse of a star
Below the O-hiah shore,
Where sub-tropic nights are wonderful sights
You may not observe where you are.

Then come stay with me in the land of the bee
And the bird and the butterfly
Where delicate forms in the region of warms
Need not hibernate to get by.

—Charles M. Whitt