US 2012: Romney 'Will not be Nominee'(Bob Vander Plaats switching to Newt?)

The International Business Times ^ | January 23, 2012 | Tom Nicolson

[2ndDivisionVet]

The president of the influential Christian organisation Family Leader has said Republican candidate Mitt Romney "will not be the eventual nominee" despite leading the polls for the nomination.

Bob Vander Plaats told the International Business Times UK that 75-80 percent of Republicans across the US do not want Romney. "The only reason why he is ahead is because there hasn't been a real alternative," said Plaats. "But now it looks like Gingrich is going to be that person."

Plaats, who initially endorsed former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, carries significant political clout within the Republican Party.

He said: "When I endorsed Santorum in December he was on five percent. He ended up winning the Iowa caucus."

But with Santorum now looking shakier and Gingrich rising in the polls, Plaats said he would now endorse his close friend for the nomination.

"I would full-heartedly endorse Gingrich," he said. "He has been a good and loyal friend to me throughout the years."

Plaats saw the ABC interview with Gingrich's ex-wife as a "hit piece" by the network and rigorously defended Gingrich

"For the people of faith, we base it on the centrepiece of forgiveness," said Plaats. "We've all fallen and none of us are perfect.

"Our faith is concerned not where you start but where you end up. Newt has been very transparent that he has fallen on his knees before God, asked for his forgiveness."

Plaats claimed that his endorsement and that of others within the Christian faith would "not just win the nominee for the party, but for President of the United Sates".

[2ndDivisionVet]

Another one. Newtmentum.

[cinciella]

This is refreshing. Great to hear someone extend grace instead of condemnation. This is exactly how I feel about Newt - he has been very transparent about his past and how he has sought God’s forgiveness.

[Coldwater Creek]

I'm with Sarah Palin. Endorsements mean NOTHING to me.

[Red Barr]

It looks as if Mitt Romney and his supporters going after the conservatives in the Republican Party and giving the Obama liberals a pass. I feel very disappointed in the governor of New Jersey and Anne Couiter who by the way was looked at with pride with the conservatives.

Point of interest:
Chris Christie has a temper that cannot be controlled and he has the gull to talk about Newt!

[dixiechick2000]

Ann Coulter and Chris Christie, as well as Sununu, Talent, Molinari, and all of the other members of the Newt hit squad, have greatly marginalized themselves.

THEY are the supposed insiders...not he.

[Vaquero]

never heard of him....heck of a name though van-der-plaats.

my Jewish friends will get a kick out of that name...

(but then again they have their ‘Lipschitz’ )

[BobL]

The Establishment is already switching to Mitch Daniels - they’ve given up on Romney. Our job is to stop them...which means staying unified on Newt.

[Colofornian]

From the article: The president of the influential Christian organisation Family Leader has said Republican candidate Mitt Romney "will not be the eventual nominee" despite leading the polls for the nomination. Bob Vander Plaats told the International Business Times UK that 75-80 percent of Republicans across the US do not want Romney.

Indeed, he won't be!

Beyond his home turf, Romney has yet to win a single primary race on the 'road'...Now 0-17! The SuperLoserMan of our times!

Don't let the MSM hoodwink its gullible viewers and listeners into their 'frontrunner' crafty handiwork! Oost Romney for good in Florida!

Just posted: 'Mr. Electability?' SuperLoserMan Mitt not viable candidate...0-17 in 'road' races [Vanity]

[mosesdapoet]

Re: Van der Plaant re-endorsement . In politics there are no friends but many political aquaintances

[MissMagnolia]

Fred Thompson endorsed Gingrich last night, now this. The dominoes have started to fall in the Romney campaign & hopefully, he won’t be able to stop them. His performance last night was reptilian.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Why didn’t he just endorse Newt in the first place?

[darrellmaurina]

This is significant.

I've been saying for some time that if Newt Gingrich is going to be the Republican nominee, we have some serious and difficult work to do to keep Christian conservatives from jumping ship or, more likely, quietly failing to work hard for the candidate.

Vander Plaats may just be the right man to do that work.

The endorsement of the major national Christian leaders would carry more weight, but many of them run nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations or pastor large churches and therefore routinely work “under the radar” with personal statements of who they will support rather than public endorsements which, though perfectly legal if done as private individuals, could attract unwanted IRS scrutiny of their organizations or churches. I don't see the major heads of organizations who have come out backing Santorum changing their endorsement anytime soon, and the smaller groups didn't come out very publicly after the Texas conference and can't be expected to do so now, either.

However, a decision by Bob Vander Plaats to switch his support to Newt Gingrich would attract my attention for three reasons:

1) The Vander Plaats endorsement was key to Huckabee and Santorum’s performance in Iowa.

2) It's not a new thing. Vander Plaats said months ago that while the former speaker's personal life was a consideration that lots of Christians were dealing with, “Since four or five years ago, he’s shown a very transparent grace and maturity... He’s been married to Callista for over a decade. He’s healed his relationship with his children.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/20/santorum_surge_watch_the_vander_plaats_ening.html

3. Perhaps most important, those who are familiar with the Dutch Reformed world know the tremendous emphasis placed in those circles on marriage issues. Excommunication for unbiblical divorce used to be routine and sexual sins are still treated with great seriousness. That is not always the case in a significant part of the evangelical world.

I'm not trying to imply that the Dutch are better at saving marriages than non-Dutch evangelicals — I grew up in Grand Rapids, used to live in Iowa, and know very well that's **NOT** true — but I am saying that marital failures often get severely punished. Cheap grace is not something associated with the Dutch. For that reason, a Vander Plaats endorsement for Gingrich may carry significance with other conservative Christian leaders since it won't be possible to dismiss it as coddling sin or treating it lightly.

In summary: If we're going to have Gingrich as our nominee, I want Vander Plaats and a lot of people like him making that case loudly and clearly. Gingrich is going to need that to get and keep evangelical votes.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I’m Lutheran, but a close cousin married Dutch (Pella, Iowa) and my late father helped run some Dutch Reformed Cursillos (DeColores).

[SkyPilot]

Bbbbuutt....the media have already chosen our candidate for us!!!

A winning ticket.

Romney - McCain 2012!

[Servant of the Cross]

Hubba. Hubba. Hubba.

[monkapotamus]

"I would full-heartedly endorse Gingrich," he said. "He has been a good and loyal friend to me throughout the years."

They must have changed the article since then - current text reads:

"I would full-heartedly endorse Gingrich [if Santorum were to drop out]," he said. "He has been a good and loyal friend to me throughout the years."

[Elsie]

Plaats claimed that his endorsement and that of others within the Christian faith would "not just win the nominee for the party, but for President of the United Sates".

[Elsie]

Great to hear someone extend grace instead of condemnation.

Yeah; it DOES get old; doesn't it!

---

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Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

 When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'?

 

 [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness."

 

 (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

 

 

 

 

 

Reinforced by the NEXT 'prophet' to hold power over the MORMONs:

 

"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;

and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,

and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.

Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)

[Elsie]

This is exactly how I feel about Newt - he has been very transparent about his past and how he has sought God’s forgiveness.

In light of the quotes from above; it looks like MITT needs to 'seek forgiveness', too!