Westward, Ho: Romney, GOP rivals now spreading out

DAVID ESPO

AP Spe­cial Correspondent

WASHINGTON — The Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial cam­paign rolled west­ward Wednes­day, Mitt Rom­ney rid­ing herd after his Florida pri­mary vic­tory, Newt Gin­grich look­ing for a new stake and a top party leader insist­ing the long trail won’t nec­es­sar­ily hurt the GOP in the race against Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

Already the tele­vi­sion ads were show­ing up in states that vote next, cau­cuses in Nevada on Sat­ur­day, in Min­nesota and Col­orado next Tues­day and in Maine the fol­low­ing weekend.

“I’m feel­ing like we’ve got a good path­way ahead,” Rom­ney declared in a tele­vi­sion inter­view on the day after his Florida triumph.

He is favored in Nevada, where there are 28 Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion del­e­gates at stake. And, alone among the con­tenders, appears to have the money to com­pete aggres­sively in all the other states as well.

Gin­grich decamped from Florida but with prospects con­sid­er­ably dim­mer than Romney’s.

He was con­ced­ing noth­ing. Routed on Tues­day night, the for­mer House speaker vowed to stay in the race until the party con­ven­tion next sum­mer. And his deci­sion not to tele­phone the pri­mary win­ner with con­grat­u­la­tions drew notice.

“I guess Speaker Gin­grich doesn’t have our phone num­ber,” Rom­ney said.

The Florida cam­paign was marked by mil­lions of dol­lars in neg­a­tive ads, and Gingrich’s promise to remain in the race raised the prospect of a months-long strug­gle. But cur­rent House Speaker John Boehner said he was not concerned.,

“I would remind peo­ple that Pres­i­dent Obama and Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton had a fight that went through June of 2008. I think every­body just needs to real­ize that this will resolve itself,” he said.

Jubi­lant in vic­tory on Tues­day night, Rom­ney was thrown onto the defen­sive the day after. “I’m not con­cerned about the very poor” because they have a social safety net, he said on CNN. Crit­i­cized quickly, he has­tened to clarify.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Rom­ney told reporters on his cam­paign plane when asked about the com­ments. He referred back to his com­plete remarks, in which he had said he would focus on middle-income Amer­i­cans rather than the very poor, who get gov­ern­ment help, or the very rich, who don’t need it. “My energy is going to be devoted to help­ing middle-income peo­ple,” he said.

By then, though, he was draw­ing crit­i­cism from con­ser­v­a­tives who wor­ried he was show­ing a pen­chant for ver­bal gaffes as well as from Obama’s cam­paign man­ager. “So much for ‘we’re all in this together,’” tweeted Jim Messina.

Gin­grich piled on. ” I am fed up with politi­cians in either party divid­ing Amer­i­cans against each other,” he said.

After mak­ing no sig­nif­i­cant cam­paign effort in Florida, for­mer Sen. Rick San­to­rum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul looked for bet­ter days in the con­tests just ahead.

San­to­rum picked up an endorse­ment from for­mer Col­orado Rep. Tom Tan­credo, known for his hard­line posi­tion on immigration.

Eager to emerge as the lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive in the race, San­to­rum said Gin­grich was near­ing the end of his run. “If Newt’s out of the race, all his votes come to me,” he said, mir­ror­ing what the for­mer House speaker fre­quently says about him.

In a speech in Wood­land Park, Colo., San­to­rum said Romney’s nom­i­na­tion would doom the party to defeat in the fall.

“Barack Obama, in a debate or in this elec­tion, is going to destroy Mitt Rom­ney on the issue of health care,” San­to­rum warned, say­ing that the for­mer gov­er­nor sup­ported a require­ment for indi­vid­u­als to pur­chase health care in Mass­a­chu­setts that is akin to the pro­vi­sion in the leg­is­la­tion that Obama signed into fed­eral law.

Paul, cam­paign­ing in Las Vegas, said he favors an immi­gra­tion pol­icy that doesn’t rely on “barbed wire fences and guns on the bor­der.” Appear­ing before an audi­ence of His­pan­ics, he said he opposes ille­gal immi­gra­tion but also is against any effort to round up and deport indi­vid­u­als who are in the United States illegally.

After a month in which four con­tests pro­duced three win­ners, Rom­ney appeared to hold for­mi­da­ble advan­tages in fundrais­ing and orga­ni­za­tion to go with a lead in national con­ven­tion del­e­gates. After win­ning all 50 at stake in Florida, he had 87 in AP’s count. Gin­grich had 26 del­e­gates, Rick San­to­rum had 14 and Ron Paul had four. It takes 1,144 to win the nomination.

Reports filed with the Fed­eral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion show Romney’s cam­paign had $20 mil­lion on hand as of Jan. 1 and Restore Our Future, an out­side group that sup­ports him, had $23.6 million.

The total of $43.6 mil­lion dwarfs fig­ures reported by the other con­tenders and the groups that back them, although the onset of the 2012 cau­cuses and pri­maries was cer­tain to have pro­duced changes.

Fig­ures from Florida show Rom­ney and Restore Our Future spent more than $15 mil­lion on tele­vi­sion ads com­bined, many of which attacked Gin­grich. The for­mer speaker and an orga­ni­za­tion that backs him spent less than $4 million.

Already, Rom­ney and Restore our Future were air­ing ads in Nevada, as was Paul.

Paul also was on the air in Min­nesota, along with the Red White and Blue Fund, which sup­port Santorum.

Posted by AP News on Feb 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.