AFTER DELIVERING a 13-minute-long speech to supporters in South Carolina, US Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney shook hands with an audience that filled only a small part of a ballroom and caught an airplane for a fundraising gala in New York, a clear sign he is looking beyond Saturday’s South Carolina primary.
The outward confidence in Romney’s posture belied a deeply uncertain and fluid conclusion to the primary, as his rivals remind conservatives through radio and television advertisements about the healthcare Bill he signed as governor of Massachusetts and about his prior support for abortion rights.
The heated bickering between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, which intensified earlier this week, delighted the Romney campaign. For all the muscle of the Romney organisation, its best path to victory in South Carolina is to keep the support for Gingrich and Santorum divided, with Governor Rick Perry of Texas capturing enough votes to prevent one of them from overtaking Romney.
But a strong debate performance on Monday night by Gingrich, a former House speaker, seemed to replenish a shine that had tarnished in recent days while he aggressively attacked Romney’s role in buying and selling companies at the investment firm Bain Capital. Gingrich delivered a blunt message to conservatives on Tuesday, suggesting that a vote for anyone else would be a waste.
“Any vote for Santorum or Perry, in effect, is a vote to let Romney become the nominee,” Gingrich said. “From the standpoint of the conservative movement, consolidating into the Gingrich candidacy would, in fact, virtually guarantee victory on Saturday.”
There were signs across the state that voters were giving Gingrich a second look. The Romney campaign had negative advertisements against Gingrich ready, aides said, and scheduled a call with reporters yesterday to discuss Gingrich’s record “as an unreliable leader”.
As he arrived to a standing ovation during a morning stop in Florence on Tuesday, Gingrich seemed to revel in the new attention. He repeatedly referred to Santorum as “a nice man” but he went on to question his electability, saying: “There is no evidence that he can put together a national majority.”
He stopped short of calling for Santorum or Perry to leave the race. But his words irritated his rivals, and it was unclear whether his approach would persuade voters in the final days of the campaign. Santorum dismissed the criticism, reminding Republicans that he earned more votes in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary than Gingrich. And Santorum was hoping for a new boost from Iowa, where party officials are reviewing his eight-vote loss to Romney and are expected to announce their findings this week.
“We may find out that ‘I almost won’ may not be an ‘almost won’,” Santorum said. He referred to himself as a bold and consistent candidate to draw a contrast with Gingrich, his chief rival, whom he referred to as “bold, but all over the place”.
“This is one of the concerns that people have about Newt,” said Santorum, who served with Gingrich in Congress. “He has this disconnection with reality that is very disconcerting for someone who wants to lead our country.”
Santorum was also receiving support from evangelical groups that began arriving in South Carolina after a weekend meeting in Texas, where a large majority of conservative Christian leaders agreed to unite behind his candidacy.
Tim Echols, an evangelical advocate who heads the Georgia public service commission, drove to South Carolina to introduce Santorum at a rally and endorse his candidacy.
“My wife and I both came away from the Texas meeting saying, ‘We don’t need to be divided as evangelicals in this election’,” said Echols, the founder of TeenPact, an organisation in 38 states that provides civics training to home-school students.
The outcome of the South Carolina primary will help determine the length of the Republican nominating contest. The race to win delegates will continue for weeks but a victory by Romney would make it hard for most of his rivals to continue.
Yet for all of his advantages, there was little excitement surrounding Romney when he arrived in Florence for his only campaign stop of the day. He was greeted by a small crowd, which delivered tepid applause.
He also opened the door to new attacks when he acknowledged during a news conference that he pays an effective tax rate of about 15 per cent because so much of his wealth comes from past investment. The criticism poured in from his Republican rivals, who have pushed him to release his tax returns, and from the White House, which portrayed him as out of touch.
Romney’s decision to spend more than half of the day away from South Carolina so he could appear at a Manhattan fundraiser also alarmed some Republicans here. They worried that it sent a signal he was not fighting hard to win South Carolina, which since 1980 has had a perfect track record of voting for the eventual Republican nominee.
Ed McMullen, the chairman of the board of directors of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, who has remained neutral in the presidential race, said the attention paid to Gingrich’s strong showing at the debate on Monday night could be a problem for Romney. And if Santorum is able to claim victory in Iowa, he said, momentum could shift.
“That would cause concern for any campaign when the chief guy nipping at your heels is making some headway,” McMullen said. “If he goes into Saturday in South Carolina, and they have a story running about how Romney actually lost Iowa, that’s going to take some serious air out of the sails, and I think they’re very concerned about that.”
– (The New York Times)