a state where automobile making was a central topic of conversation, Romney was seen as a natural to enter politics. He first became directly involved in politics in 1959, when he was a key force in the petition drive calling for a constitutional convention to rewrite the Michigan Constitution. Romney's sales skills made Citizens for Michigan one of the most effective organizations among those calling for the convention. Previously unaffiliated politically, Romney declared himself a member of the Republican Party and gained election to the convention. By early 1960, many in Michigan's somewhat moribund Republican Party were touting Romney as a possible candidate for governor, U.S. senator, or even U.S. vice president. Also in early 1960, Romney served on the Fair Campaign Practices Committee, a group also having Jewish, Catholic, mainline and evangelical Protestant, and Orthodox Christian members. It issued a report whose guiding principles were that no candidate for elected office should be supported or opposed due to their religion and that no campaign for office should be seen as an opportunity to vote for one religion against another. This statement helped pave the way for John F. Kennedy's famous speech on religion and public office later that year. Romney briefly considered a run in the 1960 Senate election, but instead became a vice president of the constitutional convention that revised the Michigan constitution during 1961 and 1962. Governor of Michigan After a period of pained indecision and a 24-hour prayer fast, Romney stepped down from AMC in February 1962 to enter electoral politics (given an indefinite leave of absence, he was succeeded as president of AMC by Roy Abernethy). Romney's position as the leader of the moderate Republicans at the constitutional convention helped gain him the Republican nomination for Governor of Michigan. He ran against the incumbent Democratic Governor John B. Swainson in the general election. Romney campaigned on revising the state's tax structure, increasing its appeal to businesses and the general public, and getting it "rolling again". Romney decried both the large influence of labor unions within the Democratic Party and the similarly large influence of big business within the Republican Party. His campaign was among the first to exploit the capabilities of electronic data processing. Romney won by some 80,000 votes and ended a fourteen-year stretch of Democratic rule in the state executive spot. His win was attributed to his appeal to independent voters and to