COLUMBIA, S.C. — Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has taken pains to prove himself a staunch ally of evangelicals and other social conservatives who dominate the Republican primaries.
He made his combat against legalization of same-sex marriage a hallmark of his governorship of Massachusetts. His support for overturning the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion is a pillar of his campaign for the White House.
And this week, while campaigning in South Carolina, he hired a prominent antiabortion lawyer as his "special advisor on life issues."
"I'm firmly pro-life," he told news crews gathered on a Mount Pleasant fishing dock overlooking Charleston Harbor.
But when he ran for governor of his liberal-leaning state in 2002, Romney pledged to "protect a woman's right to choose." And though his stand against same-sex marriage has not wavered, for years Romney backed gay-rights efforts that he now opposes.
For Romney, 59, the rightward shift on abortion and gay rights poses one of the main challenges of his candidacy: Can he convince social conservatives that he is one of their own and capture his party's nomination? Or will his late-in-life ideological swerve raise too many doubts about whether he shares their core principles?
Those questions have especially strong resonance in Iowa and South Carolina, two of the first states to hold 2008 Republican nomination contests, and both dominated by conservative evangelicals.
Romney's swing this week through South Carolina, including a breakfast stop at a Lizard's Thicket diner in Columbia to greet locals eating grits and waffles, was part of his push to reach those voters. Both of his chief Republican rivals, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, have strained ties with social conservatives.
Challenged from both sides
But two other GOP White House contenders, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have stronger connections with them and have jabbed at Romney for switching stands on abortion rights, which they oppose. Some social conservatives have questioned whether voters will accept the fact that Romney is Mormon.
Democrats, too, have piled on.
"Mitt Romney is a politician who is devoid of any real principles, devoid of any real moral compass," said Phil Johnston, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. "I don't think he believes in anything but the advancement of his own political career."
