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Time short for Gingrich to close gap in Florida

Jan 31st, 2012
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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, watches Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on television as he rides his campaign bus with his brother Scott, and sister-in-law Sheri, to Hialeah, Fla., after campaigning in Naples, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, watches Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on television as he rides his campaign bus with his brother Scott, and sister-in-law Sheri, to Hialeah, Fla., after campaigning in Naples, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks to media during a news conference outside the Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, rides in his campaign bus with his grandson Parker, 5, as they drive from Naples, Fla., to Hialeah, Fla., to continue campaigning Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks to media during a news conference outside the Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Jameson Williams, 2, of Sarasota, holds a sign outside a scheduled campaign event for Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Sarasota, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Santorum is staying home in Philadelphia to be with his 3-year-old hospitalized daughter Isabella, and is canceling campaign stops in Florida. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

MIAMI (AP) ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP rival Mitt Romney on Sunday for the steady stream of attacks he likened to “carpet-bombing,” trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner’s lead in Florida in the dwindling hours before Tuesday’s pivotal presidential primary.

Surging ahead in polls, Romney kept the pressure on Gingrich with a dominant advertising presence that questioned the former House speaker’s leadership and ethics. During campaign stops, Romney divided his focus between Gingrich and President Barack Obama.

In what has become a wildly unpredictable race, the momentum has swung back to Romney, staggered last weekend by Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina. Romney has begun advertising in Nevada ahead of that state’s caucuses next Saturday, illustrating the challenges ahead for Gingrich, who has pledged to push ahead no matter what happens in Florida.

Romney’s campaign has dogged Gingrich at his own campaign stops, sending surrogates to remind reporters of Gingrich’s House ethics probe in the 1990s and other episodes in his career.

Gingrich reacted defensively, accusing the former Massachusetts governor and a political committee that supports him of lying, and the GOP’s establishment of allowing it.

“I don’t know how you debate a person with civility if they’re prepared to say things that are just plain factually false,” Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. “I think the Republican establishment believes it’s OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order.”

Gingrich objected specifically to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House’s decision to discipline Gingrich, then speaker, for ethics charges.

After hounding Gingrich during two debates last week, Romney returned more of his attention to Obama, who had been Romney’s chief target as he tried to make the case that he was the most worthy Republican to challenge the Democratic incumbent.

But Romney didn’t relent in swiping at Gingrich, even as an NBC News/Marist poll published Sunday showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters, compared with 27 percent for Gingrich.

“He’s now finding excuses … complaining about what he thinks were the reasons he thinks he’s had difficulty here in Florida. But you know, we’ve got a president who has a lot of excuses,” Romney said at a rally in Naples. “And the excuses are over, it’s time to produce.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, stayed in his home state, where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized. She has a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. Aides said he would resume campaigning as soon as possible.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has invested little in Florida, looked ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it’s less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.

The race began moving toward a two-person fight in South Carolina, and has grown more bitter and personal in Florida.

The intense effort by Romney to slow Gingrich is comparable his strategy against Gingrich in the closing month before Iowa’s leadoff caucuses Jan. 3.

Gingrich led in Iowa polls, lifted by what were hailed as strong performances in televised debates, only to drop in the face of withering attacks by Romney, aided immensely by ads sponsored by a political committee run by former Romney aides.

In Florida, senior Romney aides have popped up at Gingrich events to question Gingrich’s conservative credentials. Led by Romney’s top Iowa adviser, David Kochel, Romney’s team cites Gingrich’s criticism of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul plan last year, and his appearance with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in an advertisement supporting climate-change legislation.

“That kind of language emboldens the critics of conservatism,” Kochel said. “We’re out pointing that out correcting the record.”

Gingrich has responded by criticizing Romney’s conservative credentials. Outside an evangelical Christian church in Lutz, Gingrich said he was the more loyal conservative on key social issues.

“This party is not going to nominate somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax increase liberal,” Gingrich said. “It isn’t going to happen.”

But Gingrich, in appearances on Sunday news programs, returned to complaining about Romney’s tactics, rather than emphasizing his own message as that of a conservative with a record of action in Congress.

“When we get to a positive idea campaign, I consistently win,” Gingrich said. “It’s only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all.”

Romney and the political committee that supports him had combined to spend some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign’s final week. Gingrich and a group that supports him were spending about one-third that amount.

Gingrich worked to portray himself as the insurgent outsider, collecting the endorsement of tea party favorite Herman Cain, whose own campaign for president foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

It was unclear how aggressively Gingrich would be able to compete in states beyond Florida. The next televised debate, a format Gingrich has used to his advantage, is not until Feb. 22, more than three weeks away.

Romney already has campaigned in Nevada more than Gingrich, is advertising there, and stresses his business background in a state hard-hit by the economy. His campaign welcomed the Sunday endorsement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper.

Michigan and Maine, states where Romney is well-positioned also hold their contests in February. Arizona, a strong tea-party state where Gingrich could do well, has its primary Feb. 28.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Naples and Shannon McCaffrey in Lutz contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-29-US-GOP-Campaign/id-8fe4b9215e2041ccbabcc2e69ca1f7cf

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Romney rivals seek SC theme, champion to stop him (AP)

Jan 17th, 2012
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CHARLESTON, S.C. ? With a week left to halt Mitt Romney from sweeping to a third straight victory, his GOP rivals are struggling in South Carolina for a theme, momentum and most crucially, one strong challenger to consolidate conservatives’ misgivings about the front-runner.

The dynamics that lifted Romney to wins in Iowa and New Hampshire seem to be working for him here, even though South Carolina is often described as too evangelical and culturally southern for his background.

In some ways, the former Massachusetts governor is lucky, benefitting from a fractured opposition that has divided the anti-Romney vote for months. In other ways he is benefiting from shrewd and well-organized supporters. He uses TV ads to shore up his weaknesses and to batter the rivals he sees as most threatening.

In Iowa, the target was former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who plummeted under the barrage. In South Carolina, it’s former Sen. Rick Santorum, a longtime champion of home-schooling, anti-abortion efforts and other social conservative causes.

Santorum nearly won the Iowa caucus, and some consider him the best bet for unifying the anti-Romney vote.

But a private group that supports Romney is pounding Santorum in South Carolina with TV ads and mailings. So is Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning candidate who helped attack Gingrich in Iowa.

Paul’s ads are especially harsh. They vilify Santorum for pushing pork-barrel projects as a Pennsylvania senator, and they portray him as an insincere conservative.

A group of social conservative leaders meeting in Texas voted Saturday to recommend Santorum as the Romney alternative. But a portion of them preferred Gingrich, who denied Santorum a two-thirds majority on their first head-to-head ballot, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Perkins said the group’s actions did not constitute an endorsement, adding that some participants will remain Gingrich supporters. He declined to say how he voted.

“Santorum was the preferred candidate by a significant majority,” former presidential candidate Gary Bauer told The Associated Press by telephone from Texas. “They were all looking for the best Reagan conservative,” he said. “It came down to things like, who do you most trust.”

The Texas vote is obviously good news for Santorum. But it’s unclear how much impact it will have in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday.

The state is known for campaign surprises, and there’s still time for twists and turns. Undercurrents of anti-Romney sentiment, perhaps fueled by his Mormonism, could be stronger than they seem.

But on the surface, at least, Romney is well-positioned with a week to go. If he wins South Carolina, only a seismic change in the campaign will keep him from becoming the nominee.

The next primary, on Jan. 31, is in Florida, a sprawling and expensive state where Romney’s superior money and organization could essentially put the matter to rest, kicking off the general election against President Barack Obama.

“Romney is in good shape now, but the race is tightening,” said LaDonna Ryggs, Spartanburg County GOP chairwoman.

There is little evidence that a barrage of ads depicting Romney as a heartless corporate raider is having much effect. He is airing a counter-ad defending his record at Bain Capital, which sometimes created jobs, and sometimes reduced them, when it restructured dozens of companies in the 1980s and `90s.

“That’s what his job was, and he did it well,” said Carleen Coffey, 51, who defended Romney even as she attended an event for Texas Gov. Rick Perry in Charleston.

The anti-Romney ad, aired by a group supporting Gingrich, has generated much comment in political and media circles. Many conservative leaders have condemned it, and Gingrich later back-pedaled, questioning the accuracy of the anti-Romney documentary film behind it.

For ordinary South Carolina Republicans, however, the ad risks being lost in an avalanche of TV commercials, which many voters say they ignore. Romney’s campaign events run like clockwork, while his opponents often suffer glitches and modest crowds. Gingrich, in particular, has left people scratching their heads.

He spoke at a home-ownership rally Thursday in Columbia that appeared to be dominated by Democratic speakers and attendees. Gingrich got a big introduction at a GOP barbecue Friday in Duncan, but he inexplicably didn’t show up for many minutes. Santorum jumped into the void, working the room and getting valuable one-on-one time with voters.

Then on Saturday, Gingrich’s scheduled telephone conference with voters never took place. The dial-in number was invalid.

Perry has faded. Once seen having a good chance to beat Romney in South Carolina, the drawling Texan is drawing small crowds at cafes and restaurants. Saturday morning in Mount Pleasant, about half the people at Page’s Okra Grill didn’t bother to stop eating or talking while Perry spoke in a corner.

The TV attack ads in South Carolina skip Perry. It’s a sign of his perceived insignificance, although he could benefit if the others slice each other up.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is getting even less attention.

Some people think Santorum is rising, but the attack ads might slow him. Santorum’s boyish looks have always boosted his image as a principled crusader for unborn children and other causes. But the ads being aired by Paul’s campaign and the pro-Romney group depict him as a conniving, old-fashioned politician who grabbed federal money for his state whenever possible.

“Some people are going to be swayed,” said Alexia Newman, a South Carolina GOP activist and Santorum supporter. “If you know about his records, you know the ads are false,” she said. But that requires Santorum to break through the noise and clutter of political commercials flooding the airwaves.

The pro-Romney PAC, Restore Our Future, is running $1 million in ads in the state this week, and more than $800,000 next week. Not all of them target Santorum, however. Santorum’s campaign and a PAC that backs him are running pro-Santorum ads.

No single issue is dominating the primary. That makes it harder for any one Romney opponent to catch fire.

Religion and the military play bigger roles here than in Iowa, and especially New Hampshire. Romney has worked hard to address both.

He has built several events around military service, starting with his Veterans’ Day trip to South Carolina last November. He has been campaigning lately with Sen. John McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee and Vietnam War hero.

As for religion, Romney has tried to portray himself as a moral and faithful man, without going into details of Mormonism. On Friday, a woman in Hilton Head asked him, “Do you believe in the divine saving grace of Jesus Christ?”

“Yes, I do,” Romney replied, adding: “Our nation was founded on the principle…of religious tolerance and liberty in this land, and so we welcome people of other faiths.”

Romney’s campaign has produced a Web ad in which an anti-abortion activist endorses him. Romney supported abortion rights as Massachusetts governor.

Romney’s main worries might involve currents he can’t see. South Carolina has a reputation for dirty campaign tricks, although many Republicans here say it’s mostly a thing of the past.

Whatever the case, an anonymous group has sent a text message purporting to be a Romney campaign item. But callers hear Romney being criticized on abortion.

___

Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Jim Davenport, Kasie Hunt and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120115/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Romney rivals go after front-runner on primary eve

Jan 12th, 2012
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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, campaigns at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson, N.H., Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, campaigns at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson, N.H., Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Richard Freedman waits for Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to arrive at the Nashua Country Club, Monday, Jan. 9, 2012, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Campaign door hanging literature and food sits on a table as Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Nashua Chamber of Commerce Breakfast in Nashua, N.H., Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sits with volunteers and calls likely voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, Monday, Jan. 9, 2012, during a visit to his campaign headquarters in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman holds eight-week-old Grace Lesperance while campaigning at Mary’s Bakery and Cafe in Henniker, N.H. Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) ? Mitt Romney’s declaration that “I like being able to fire people” set off a tempest on the eve of the New Hampshire Republican primary as his rivals seized a chance to rough up his presidential prospects beyond the race he’s expected to win Tuesday.

Never mind that Romney was talking about American consumers being able to “fire” their health insurance companies, not about a boss laying off workers. His off-the-cuff comments Monday played into growing questions about whether his drive for profits at a private equity firm came at the expense of workers.

“Gov. Romney enjoys firing people, I enjoy creating jobs,” GOP rival Jon Huntsman told reporters at a Concord, N.H., rally. “It may be that he’s slightly out of touch with the economic reality playing out in America, and that’s a dangerous place for someone to be.”

Newt Gingrich said Romney’s firm “apparently looted” the companies it took over, and he promised a clamorous challenge ahead, no matter what happens in New Hampshire.

“I spent three weeks with Gov. Romney saying a variety of foolish things like, you need broad shoulders, and, you need to stand the heat,” Gingrich said. “I mean, fine, OK, I’ve got broad shoulders, I can stand the heat. Now, we’ll see if he has broad shoulders and he can stand the heat.”

The former Massachusetts governor, who had practically adopted New Hampshire as his home, has held a comfortable lead in pre-primary polls, leaving his opponents essentially vying for second place while hoping New Hampshire’s capacity to spring a surprise might yet break their way.

Romney tried to shrug off the fallout from his remarks ? and the piling on.

“Free enterprise will be on trial,” he told reporters. “I thought it was going to come from the president, from the Democrats, from the left, but instead it’s coming from Speaker Gingrich and apparently others and that’s just part of the process. I’m not worried about that.

“I’ve got broad shoulders,” he said once again, “and I’m happy to describe my experience in the private economy.”

Rivals quickened their drumbeat of criticism against him in the fast-paced finale of the New Hampshire campaign. Much of it is centered on his tenure at Bain Capital when it took over a host of companies, growing some and closing others.

Romney has never substantiated his claim that he helped create more than 100,000 jobs at Bain, an assertion key to his economically centered candidacy. That has left him vulnerable to charges by Democrats, and increasingly his GOP opponents, that he was merely a corporate takeover artist who put profits ahead of workers.

Declaring “I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament,” Gingrich promised a tougher tone in the race, which he had previewed in weekend debates. “Mitt Romney cannot campaign with a straight face as a conservative,” said the former House speaker, soon to be aided by an ad campaign in South Carolina assailing Romney and his Bain record.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, rocked by a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, echoed Gingrich’s line of attack from South Carolina, having passed up the New Hampshire race.

“I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips ? whether he’d have enough of them to hand out,” Perry told several dozen breakfast patrons in Anderson, S.C. That was a slap at Romney’s recent comment that he worried about getting a pink slip during his executive career.

Perry cited South Carolina companies that downsized under Bain’s control, and said it would be an “insult” for Romney to come to the state and ask for voters’ support in easing economic pain.

“He caused it,” Perry said, describing himself as best positioned to untangle the “unholy alliance between Washington and Wall Street.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, a prominent Romney supporter, shot back that Gingrich and Perry are talking not just like Democrats, but socialists.

“Sometimes the socialists are Republicans,” Sununu said at Romney’s Manchester, N.H., headquarters, where the candidate stopped to make a few calls to voters. “I would not be using comments that sound like they could have been written in the White House.”

Despite the swirling questions about workers who lost their jobs at Bain-owned companies, Romney chose to liken consumers in the health care market to employers who get to lay people off. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” he said, looking weary, at a Nashua Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

“If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say, you know, ‘I’m going to get somebody else to provide that service to me.’”

Alone among the half dozen contenders, Perry skipped New Hampshire. But several others are looking to South Carolina, too, to help level the playing field, conceding Romney’s advantage in his neighborhood.

One of them was Rick Santorum, who came within eight votes of upsetting Romney in Iowa only to find New Hampshire a tough sell.

“Second place would be a dream come true,” Santorum told reporters, who outnumbered supporters on a chilly soccer field in Nashua. He is hoping his social conservative credentials will serve him better in South Carolina, which votes Jan. 21.

The candidates were all but tripping over each other Monday, concentrating their day in the southern half of New Hampshire, known for holding town-hall meetings in actual town halls.

Meantime the advertising scene has quickly turned more negative in South Carolina.

On Monday, Ron Paul’s campaign unleashed an ad calling Santorum “another serial hypocrite who can’t be trusted,” an attempt to counter his rise in South Carolina polls and his growing appeal to social conservatives.

This followed an ad Gingrich began broadcasting Sunday attacking Romney’s economic plans.

Paul visited a Manchester diner in the morning, planning to shake hands with patrons, but swiftly departed because of a crush of news camera crews.

The Texas congressman told Fox News his campaign did not plan to contest Florida, which holds its primary Jan. 31, largely for financial reasons. But he said the plan could change if he did well in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“We’re still taking one week at a time, one primary at a time.”

Huntsman, who needs a strong New Hampshire performance to stay viable in the race, had perhaps the most frantic pace Monday, with seven stops on his itinerary from Lebanon near the Vermont line to the seacoast.

The former Utah governor visited a Lebanon truck stop and took the phone from an employee behind the counter who was speaking with a milk delivery driver. He said he’s looking for votes wherever he can find them. “I’m the underdog,” he said, a label that applies ? at least in New Hampshire ? to anyone but Romney.

Huntsman was greeted outside a Dover bakery by former state party chairman Fergus Cullen, who said he decided Sunday night to back him. The harsh tone of the GOP race weighed on Cullen.

“I like that he’s a positive person, he’s not angry,” he said of Huntsman. “The party can’t give in to its anger.”

___

Associated Press writers Brian Bakst in Anderson, S.C., Thomas Beaumont in Columbia, S.C., and Holly Ramer, Brian Bakst, Shannon McCaffrey, Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt in New Hampshire contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-09-US-GOP-Campaign/id-38d918f72fd04c2e8a17eff2c6126430

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