Romney camp plans mass drive to seek support

Additional information:  » Romney works to put skeptics' doubts to rest Read article from The New York Times

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign is looking to sign up 24,000 new supporters in just 24 hours next week at events around the country, including Utah.

The clock starts ticking Tuesday night, when the 10 declared Republican contenders for the White House gather in South Carolina for their second debate of the 2008 race on the Fox News cable channel.

Some 50 Utahns around the state are already planning to host parties in their homes during the debate, including one of Romney's five sons, Josh, a real-estate developer who lives in the Sugar House area.

Josh Romney will also spend Wednesday at the South Towne Expo Center at a "call center" event, where Utahns are being asked to bring their own cell phones and contact their friends about joining the campaign.

The call center will operate from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. Wednesday, and a similar operation may be set up in either Provo or Orem, where a number of students are already involved in helping Romney.

Tuesday's events, billed as "Sign Up America," are intended to create grass-roots support for Romney, who by the first three months of the year had already raised the most money of any GOP candidate, more than $21 million.

"The purpose is to rally support around the country for my dad," Josh Romney told the Deseret Morning News. "Probably the most important thing people in Utah can do is donate money, but there are other ways people can be supportive."

The sign-up announcement was just one of several developments in the Romney campaign.

• In an appearance to be broadcast Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Romney discusses his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and defends his opposition to gay marriage, citing the Scriptures. "This isn't just some temporary convenience here on Earth, but we're people that are designed to live together as male and female and we're gonna have families," he tells interviewer Mike Wallace, according to an excerpt CBS released Friday. "And that, there's a great line in the Bible that children are an inheritance of the Lord and happy is he who has or hath his quiver full of them." Romney is also on the upcoming cover of Time magazine.

• Although some evangelical Christians support Romney's candidacy, evangelist Bill Keller has sent an e-mail to 2.4 million subscribers saying, "If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan." Keller hosts a Florida-based TV prayer program and LivePrayer.com.