Is it ever too early to conduct an informal straw poll of 2008 presidential hopefuls? Probably not, which is why the Southern Republican Leadership Conference did precisely that on Saturday night in Tennessee. Not surprisingly, the hometown favorite, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, took a strong lead over more than a dozen other candidates. He finished with 36.9 percent of the vote. But a hefty 82 percent of these votes came from Frist’s fellow Tennesseans.

Frist’s win was predictable and not particularly meaningful. The more surprising outcome is the identity of the second-place candidate.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney earned 14.4 percent of the votes to land squarely in second place. His strong showing is remarkable on many levels. First, he bypassed Virginia Senator George Allen (10.3 percent), who is often named as an early frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Second, and more importantly, Romney made this showing right smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt.

Why does the location of the poll matter so much? Romney, you see, is Mormon. Many commentators have argued that evangelical Christians in the Republican base will be reluctant to vote for him.

Saturday’s poll results certainly put that theory to the test.

Romney is precisely the kind of candidate that religious Republicans should be seriously evaluating at this stage of the game. During his tenure as Governor, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. Romney responded by seeking an amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution and by actively promoting the Federal Marriage Amendment. He is also planning to promote legislation that would exempt religious institutions from Massachusetts’s gay adoption requirement.

Moreover, Romney has demonstrated his ability to be fiscally conservative. Soon after taking office, he transformed a $3 billion state budget deficit into a $700 million surplus. He didn’t raise taxes; instead, he achieved this feat with reduced spending, government consolidation, and reform.

Romney loves to tell audiences about one of these initiatives. Before his tenure, a homeless person arriving at a fully occupied shelter would be sent to a taxpayer-financed hotel room. You guessed it. Word spread and requests for these free hotel rooms were abundant; they cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Romney saw a better way, and he turned the system on its head. Now, a homeless person arriving at a shelter is always admitted to the shelter on the spot. If needed, the person who has been at the shelter the longest gets sent to a hotel room.

Think about it. Suddenly, getting a free hotel room is a bit more painful. A person would have to endure weeks and months in a homeless shelter before making it to the top of the waiting list. Not surprisingly, the number of taxpayer-financed hotel room rentals soon plummeted from 600 rooms per night to zero rooms per night.

Not bad at all.

Of course, conservatives will have a few questions to ask Romney before they vote for him. Most notably, they will need answers regarding his stance on abortion. Romney states that he is personally pro-life, but his position on the appropriate legal status of abortion is unclear. On the one hand, his gubernatorial race featured a pledge that he would not attempt to change the abortion-friendly laws in the State of Massachusetts. On the other hand, he claims that his views have evolved during the course of the past decade, and he recently vetoed a stem-cell research and emergency contraception bills. He remains adamantly opposed to cloning.

This author, for one, was very impressed upon seeing Romney in person a few months ago. Romney is articulate and charismatic. His speeches are enthusiastic, genuine, and inspiring. He takes questions about his religion with good humor and seems to know how to laugh at himself.

Saturday’s straw poll may be just the beginning for Romney. If he continues down this road, then he will be the man to beat for the Republican nod in ’08.

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