After Iowa, Romney now hopes to pull away in NH

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney lis­tens at left, as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks dur­ing a town hall style meet­ing in Man­ches­ter, N.H., Jan. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

DAVID ESPO, KASIE HUNT

Asso­ci­ated Press

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Mitt Rom­ney eagerly pock­eted an endorse­ment from two-time New Hamp­shire pri­mary win­ner John McCain on Wednes­day and bid to con­vert a single-digit vic­tory in Iowa into a Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial cam­paign jug­ger­naut. Unim­pressed, Newt Gin­grich ridiculed the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor as a lib­eral turned mod­er­ate now mas­querad­ing as a conservative.

For­mer Penn­syl­va­nia Sen. Rick San­to­rum sought to rally con­ser­v­a­tives to his side after com­ing achingly close to vic­tory in Iowa, say­ing he “hoped to sur­prise a few peo­ple just like we did” in the campaign’s first contest.

“This is a wide-open race still,” added for­mer Utah Gov. Jon Hunts­man, who skipped the Iowa cau­cuses in hopes of mak­ing his mark in next Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Rom­ney is the odds-on favorite to win the New Hamp­shire pri­mary, though, and it is unclear how much cam­paign cash any of his rivals has avail­able to try to slow or even stop his momen­tum. Addi­tion­ally, in a mea­sure of his estab­lish­ment sup­port, the for­mer gov­er­nor announced he would cam­paign with South Car­olina Gov. Nikki Haley on Thurs­day, as he was joined by McCain in New Hampshire.

“The time has arrived for Repub­li­cans to choose a pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, a new stan­dard bearer who has the abil­ity and deter­mi­na­tion to defeat Pres­i­dent Obama,” said McCain, the 2008 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, and a man with a demon­strated appeal to the state’s inde­pen­dent voters.

Already, the Repub­li­can field of chal­lengers was dwindling.

Min­nesota Rep. Michele Bach­mann ended her cam­paign after a dreary 5 per­cent show­ing in Iowa, the state where she was born.

After sug­gest­ing he, too, might with­draw, Texas Gov. Rick Perry decided oth­er­wise. “Here we come, South Car­olina!!!” he tweeted. That pri­mary is Jan. 21, and will mark the first bal­lot­ing in the South as well as in a state that is part of the Repub­li­can Party’s con­ser­v­a­tive, polit­i­cal base nationally.

Iowa, for months ground zero in the Repub­li­can race, yielded an almost impos­si­bly close finish.

Rom­ney emerged with an eight-vote vic­tory over San­to­rum, whose grass-roots cam­paign­ing pro­duced a late surge that fell just shy of vic­tory. Texas Rep. Ron Paul fin­ished third, fol­lowed by Gin­grich, Perry and Bachmann.

A sur­vey of Iowa caucus-goers high­lighted the inter­nal divi­sions in the GOP as it sets out to find a chal­lenger for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama in the gen­eral elec­tion campaign.

Rom­ney, who cam­paigned as the man best posi­tioned to defeat Obama, was the favorite by far among caucus-goers who said that goal was their pri­or­ity. Paul was pre­ferred by those who said what mat­tered most was back­ing a true con­ser­v­a­tive. San­to­rum ran par­tic­u­larly well among those who said they were look­ing for a can­di­date with strong moral character.

Paul out­polled his rivals among younger vot­ers and gained an esti­mated 48 per­cent share of self-identified inde­pen­dents, a group that tra­di­tion­ally plays a major role in deter­min­ing the out­come of New Hampshire’s primary.

“If you look to bring­ing new peo­ple in, the frus­trated young peo­ple that Obama had, you have to look at my cam­paign. I mean that’s where the enthu­si­asm is,” he said.

McCain and Rom­ney clashed sharply as rivals in 2008 before rec­on­cil­ing for the fall campaign.

The Ari­zona sen­a­tor did well among younger and inde­pen­dent vot­ers in his two New Hamp­shire pri­mary cam­paigns. Now, in a sup­port­ing role, he said, “Our mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Obama is, you can run but you can’t hide from your record.”

Rom­ney was more scathing. Para­phras­ing the pres­i­dent, he recalled, “He said, ‘If I can’t turn this econ­omy around in three years, I’ll be look­ing at a one-term proposition.’

“Well, I’m here to col­lect,” he added.

Before leav­ing Iowa, Rom­ney made the round of early morn­ing inter­view pro­grams, sound­ing at times more like an ana­lyst of a race than a competitor.

“I think there’s a real boost com­ing out of Iowa, not just for me but also of course for Rick San­to­rum and Ron Paul,” he said.

At the same time, he brushed aside sug­ges­tions that his share of the vote in Iowa, less than 25 per­cent, was a sign of weakness.

“Ronald Rea­gan got 29 per­cent of the votes here and ulti­mately he was able to become our nom­i­nee,” said, refer­ring to the 1980 cam­paign that put Repub­li­cans in the White House.

He had a stiffer response to Gin­grich, who refused to extend con­grat­u­la­tions in the wake of the Iowa outcome.

“I’m sure he’s dis­ap­pointed in the results last night. But I expect he’ll go on and mount a spir­ited cam­paign,” he said.

Spir­ited might be an under­state­ment, given the sharp esca­la­tion in rhetoric from the for­mer House speaker in the final hours in Iowa. His cam­paign pur­chased a full-page adver­tise­ment in the Union Leader, New Hampshire’s largest news­pa­per, call­ing Rom­ney a Mass­a­chu­setts moderate.

Talk­ing with reporters in Con­cord, N.H., Gin­grich described him­self as a “con­ser­v­a­tive leader for the last gen­er­a­tion,” and depicted Rom­ney as some­thing entirely different.

“In that same time period, Gov. Rom­ney was first an inde­pen­dent, then repu­di­ated Reagan-Bush, then voted for Paul Tsongas, the most lib­eral can­di­date in the ‘93 cam­paign, then ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy and then became a mod­er­ate to run for gov­er­nor in Mass­a­chu­setts in 2002.”

Gin­grich accused his rival of includ­ing state-funded abor­tions in the health care leg­is­la­tion he signed into law in Mass­a­chu­setts and said he had “specif­i­cally des­ig­nated Planned Par­ent­hood as a part of Rom­ney care, appointed lib­eral judges to pla­cate Democ­rats and raised taxes on business…”

“I sus­pect it’s going to be a very lively cam­paign,” he added.

Gin­grich was briefly the leader in opin­ion polls in Iowa, before his sup­port eroded under the weight of attack ads by a super PAC run by Romney’s allies. Short of funds, the for­mer speaker was unable to respond in kind, and declared he would run only a pos­i­tive campaign.

Hav­ing jet­ti­soned that approach, it is unclear how much money his cam­paign has left after Iowa, and how will­ing a sep­a­rate super PAC set up to sup­port him is to spend.

Per­son­ally, Rom­ney was able to remain largely above the fray in Iowa’s ad wars, gen­er­ally run­ning pos­i­tive com­mer­cials while his allies took on Gin­grich and other rivals.

Except for appear­ing at debates, Perry is not expected to com­pete in New Hamp­shire, sav­ing his energy and cash for South Carolina.

In bow­ing out, Bach­mann bestowed no endorse­ment. Nor did she say if she intended to seek re-election to the House from Minnesota.

Posted by AP News on Jan 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.