Road to the White House

Now that a second accuser has come forward to talk about sexual harassment at the wandering hand of Herman Cain, I think it’s safe to say that his run for the Republican nomination is all but over. With Texas Governor Rick Perry also sinking in the polls, it looks as if Mitt Romney will eventually prevail.

I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with an old friend, a Republican, living in the Deep South. There was a time when he couldn’t have voted for Governor Romney because of his Mormonism. “How can I support someone who thinks Jesus Christ was just another apostle,” he once said to me. My friend, who is himself deeply devoted to his own faith, has had a change of heart. He now thinks Romney will win the nomination and says religion should play no part in anyone’s decision. After all, church and state are supposed to be separate.

I formed my own positive opinion on Romney 18 months ago. He was coming through Toronto to promote his book, No Apology, at a question-and-answer session scheduled for Indigo’s flagship store at Bay and Bloor. Indigo CEO Heather Reisman couldn’t attend, so they asked me to stand in. I was to ask Romney four questions and the only constraint, according to his staff, was that I could not ask if he intended to run for president. Well, I thought, there’s my fourth question. He didn’t blink when I asked, simply stating that he was going to decide after Labor Day.

As I watched him sign books and work the delighted crowd of four hundred, I concluded that he was an excellent retail politician. While I don’t agree with many of his policy pronouncements, I have admired his performance in the recent debates. My prediction is that he will be the GOP nominee. And if the economy does not improve during the next twelve months, Mitt Romney will be elected the forty-fifth president of the United States of America. At least he knows where Canada is. He was born and raised in Michigan and has a summer property in Ontario.