A prominent religious leader in South Carolina says he made a "personal error" in agreeing to support Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, The Baptist Press reports today.
Don Wilton is pastor of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg and a former president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. "Wilton said the Romney campaign has agreed to withdraw all references to his endorsement of Romney as a candidate," the paper writes.
Wilton told the paper he had never before endorsed a candidate of either party for any office. Part of his statement: "While I did give my consent to the local campaign to use my affirmation of the governor's stance on family values in my capacity as an individual citizen, I made the mistake of not realizing the extent to which it would be used on a national basis. It was my personal error to agree to support Romney's campaign."
"Rev. Wilton is a great leader in the community and we respect any decision he makes regarding his involvement with the campaign," campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said in an e-mailed statement.
The development is a setback for Romney, a Mormon who has been working to make inroads with religious conservatives and squeaked to a straw-poll win Saturday at a "Values Voter Summit" in Washington.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/10/sc-evangelical-.html------------------------------------
Well, that didn't last long!