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Opinion: Californian carries some water for Mitt Romney

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BOSTON -- In Iowa, Mitt Romney bashed Mike Huckabee. In New Hampshire, he took on John McCain. Both targets withstood the damage and romped past Romney to victory.

So now, with a three-way battle shaping up in Michigan’s Republican primary on Tuesday, will Romney lash out at both? Will he get personal?

Yes and yes, if remarks by a top Romney fundraiser on Wednesday offer any gauge of things to come.

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Mark Chapin Johnson, a California co-chair of Romney’s Republican presidential campaign, asserted that McCain’s temperament and Huckabee’s background as a minister made each unsuitable for the Oval Office.

[UPDATE: A Romney spokesman later said Johnson was expressing purely personal views that had not been sanctioned by the campaign.]

Johnson made his comments a few minutes after greeting Romney in Boston at a fundraising event, Johnson called McCain ‘extremely volatile.’

‘I like him, but he’s got a short fuse,’ Johnson said in an interview. ‘He’s got a short temper.’

As for Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister ...

... and former governor of Arkansas, Johnson said that Romney, a Mormon, would do a better job of keeping religion out of government.

‘He’s not running for pastor, he’s running for president,’ Johnson said of Romney. ‘Huckabee’s running for pastor.’

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Johnson, a San Juan Capistrano medical-company mogul, has raised several hundred thousand dollars for Romney. He described himself as an evangelical.

‘A spiritual foundation is an important part of my life. But that’s not what the president of the United States should be about.’

‘How could a pastor become a president of the United States and detach himself from his pastoral roots?’ Johnson added. ‘That’s not possible in my mind.’

-- Michael Finnegan

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