It's not just pandering to evangelicals. It's part of his Mormon faith as well:
The concept of dual Zions was first expressed 170 years ago—a half century before the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. In Joseph Smith’s 1842 “Wentworth Letter”—a document in which Smith outlined the history and beliefs of his new Church of Latter Day Saints—the Mormon prophet wrote to his followers that:
We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes—and that Zion will be built on this continent.
Smith’s ideas about the “literal gathering of Israel” did not remain in the realm of speculation. Rather, he acted on them with great haste.
In the following year, 1843, Smith sent his emissary Orson Hyde to Jerusalem, a quite arduous journey in those pre-steamship-travel days. Smith instructed Hyde to bless the holy city and to pray for the return of the Jews to it. A visitor to Jerusalem today can visit the spot where Hyde made this prayer. The Jerusalem branch of Brigham Young University (formally known as the BYU Center for Near Eastern Studies), located on the slopes of Mount Scopus and overlooking the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, was constructed in the 1980s directly above the spot from which Hyde blessed the city. And Mormons worldwide continue their advocacy for what, in Smith’s time, was termed “the restoration of the Jews” and was later, within fifty years of Smith’s murder in 1844, termed Zionism.
The conservative Christian “pro-Israel” agenda has become a permanent part of the Republican primary campaign and will likely continue through the general election. American Christian Zionism is as old as Jewish Zionism, but in Romney’s case, the roots are even deeper.
More on the Mormon-Zionist connection here. The faith is officially neutral in the Israel-Palestine controversy, and some Mormons are actively pro-Palestinian. One nugget that drew my eye:
The LDS church has two congregations in Israel: the Galilee Branch in Tiberias and the Jerusalem Branch in Jerusalem. Latter-day Saints in Israel hold their worship services on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Mormons do not proselytize in the area and are discouraged from proselytizing, as proselytizing in Israel is illegal.
The Dish 