Newt Gingrich's surprise thumping of Mitt Romney in the South Carolina Republican primary sets the stage for a prolonged and potentially messy fight to determine who will lead the party's campaign to defeat President Barack Obama.
Mr. Romney, seen as the all-but-inevitable nominee a week ago, now faces in Mr. Gingrich a surging rival who survived millions of dollars in negative advertising to pull off the most unexpected win of the campaign so far.
As the race turns now to the far larger and more diverse state of Florida, which holds its primary election Jan. 31, the drama in South Carolina has revived fears within the party over perceived weaknesses of both of the top candidates.
Some party leaders worry that Mr. Romney, for all his money and organizational might, still shows little ability to stir enthusiasm within the GOP. Others fret that the mercurial Mr. Gingrich, for all his punch, could prove a risky nominee.
Mr. Gingrich rode two strong debate performances last week to beat Mr. Romney by 12 percentage points in South Carolina on Saturday, with former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Ron Paul coming in third and fourth.
All four candidates now say they will plow on well past the Florida primary, making it all the likelier that the race will continue well into March or beyond.
Romney aides said they were far from panicked over the South Carolina loss, noting they had never counted on a win there and have been prepared all along for a long, state-by-state fight for convention delegates. The aides said the campaign now plans to sharpen its focus on Mr. Gingrich's character and record in Washington.
Some Romney backers agreed that the former Massachusetts governor needed to make a more pointed case. "Rarely does anybody go unbeaten in this game. But when that happens, you have to learn something,'' said Tom Rath, a leading Romney strategist in New Hampshire. "I don't think it changes our fundamental message or approach. But it does say there is great unease in this electorate.''
Mr. Romney, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," toughened his rhetoric and previewed the thrust of the week ahead. He described Mr. Gingrich as "a person who spent 40 years in Washington as a congressman and a lobbyist." He promised to question the former House speaker's "vision, sobriety and steadiness."
Mr. Romney also moved to right a self-described stumble in South Carolina by announcing that he would release his 2010 tax returns and estimated returns for 2011 on Tuesday. "We just made a mistake in holding off as long as we did," he said on Fox. Like The Wall Street Journal, Fox is owned by News Corp.
Mr. Gingrich made clear he plans to cast himself as the hard-hitting insurgent. "Look, I think the No. 1 thing people look for in difficult times is authenticity," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation." He said Mr. Romney lacked the fervor and convictions to move voters within the party.
Mr. Romney's "core problem," Mr. Gingrich said, is that he remains a "Massachusetts moderate, which by the standards of Republican primary voters is a liberal."
The big test in Florida will be whether Mr. Gingrich's surging momentum can trump Mr. Romney's money and depth of organization. The Romney campaign already has targeted tens of thousands of absentee and early voters. In all, nearly 200,000 ballots already have been cast. Nearly two million ballots were cast in the 2008 GOP primary.
The Romney campaign and its allies have spent an estimated $4 million in Florida on television airtime so far, according to media firms tracking ad reservations. Mr. Gingrich's ability to keep pace with the Romney spending is unclear.
Early this week, Mr. Gingrich and his aides will determine how much money they will spend in Florida, where most polls show Mr. Romney with a sizable lead. The campaign said Sunday it had raised over $1 million in the past 24 hours, evidence that Mr. Gingrich was capitalizing on his win.
Despite Mr. Gingrich's relative lack of resources, the strength of his surge is stirring unease in Romney circles.
"The work Romney has put into the state is substantial, but it is not impervious to the momentum that Gingrich now has," said Florida State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who endorsed Mr. Romney last week. "Romney is going to have to put in two very strong debate performances."
All four leading candidates will meet Monday night in Tampa for the first of two Florida GOP debates. The second will be Thursday in Jacksonville.
Mr. Gingrich's ability to advertise will likely eclipse that of Mr. Santorum's, his rival in the battle to become established as the conservative alternative to Mr. Romney. Mr. Paul already has said he will devote few resources to Florida, focusing instead on states where his money and fervent backers are likely to yield larger caches of delegates.
"It's going to be more of a two-man race,'' said Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican and Gingrich backer in Georgia. "You have a clear distinction in style for the primary voters to choose between.''
The nominating process is still in its early stages as all candidates try to claim the 1,144 delegates needed to win. Mr. Romney leads with 33 delegates, compared to 25 for Mr. Gingrich and 14 for Mr. Santorum, according to an Associated Press tally. Fifty delegates will go to the winner in Florida.
Looking beyond Florida, several of the next contests—in Nevada, Arizona and Michigan—appear to favor Mr. Romney. But February also contains a nearly three-week gap in the voting action, a lull that could allow a surging Mr. Gingrich to regroup and focus on fund raising.
The aftermath of the Gingrich upset has created an awkward moment for the Republican Party's top elected leaders and allies.
"There's no question the Republican establishment in D.C. favors Mitt Romney, but they are powerless to do anything about it,'' said Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.), who hasn't endorsed any candidate. "Any advantage they can give, he already has—money, talented staff, national organization. If they visibly oppose Newt Gingrich, they do so at their peril.''
GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who supported former candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. but now is backing no one, said the results defied the tradition of South Carolina going with the candidate of the establishment.
"There's obvious discomfort with Mitt, but I still believe that discomfort with Mitt doesn't mean he's unacceptable,'' said Mr. Ayres. "Does he light people's candle—does he get them ready to march through a wall of flame? No. Will he come across as a competent potential president and turn the election into a referendum on the Obama administration? Yes.''
read more: Olympus Wealth Management
No comments:
Post a Comment