My post on “A storm brewing inside Romney’s transition” has garnered a few comments, Tweets and emails.
As I noted in the piece, “some senior Romney aides — and conservative movement leaders (an odd alliance, to be sure) — worry that former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt [who runs the transition office] is attempting a power grab.”
Perhaps not surprisingly (although it constituted only a fraction of the column), the quote about the “Mormon mafia” garnered the most attention and controversy. In response, a Mormon reader (who is connected to the Romney campaign) emailed me this:
Leavitt is a true manager — a very very good one.
He is more conservative then people think — he lives a very conservative life. The funny thing about the “social conservative” aspect is that people like Leavitt are as personally conservative as any [Evangelical], but Mormons in business personify temperance in leadership and public life. Look at Utah’s economy the past two decades. Are their states more fiscally conservative? Is that what our country needs?
… I do believe this, Leavitt is surrounding himself with loyalist because they don’t leak. Big thing in the Romney world.
I also know this, Romney will not appoint a lot of Mormons. He will not want to make this an issue.