Mitt Romney?s Iowa showing indicated he still has glaring vulnerabilities with his party?s base ? but conservatives got a stark reminder Wednesday about just how difficult it will be to block his path to the nomination.
Romney?s conservative opposition remains split and unable to unify behind a single alternative ? all the more so with Rick Perry deciding to stay in the race Wednesday after hinting he might step aside. A high-profile Christian conservative, Gary Bauer, said he had no intention of joining a campaign to take down Romney.
Continue ReadingAnd even second-place Iowa finisher Rick Santorum?s momentum hardly seems enough to slow Romney in New Hampshire, where the former Massachusetts governor is sitting on a double-digit lead with five days until the primary.
Because of the divided nature of the opposition and Romney?s organizational and financial advantages, GOP elites made the case Wednesday that there was no clear way he could be stopped.
?I thought Newt [Gingrich] could?ve been a threat for a while, but [the insurgents] have not been able to unify,? said one former Republican national chairman.
A veteran House Republican who is ostensibly neutral said: ?I sort of think it?s over, right??
?South Carolina and Florida are the nails in the coffin, which is why the right is so mad ? they see it coming but the dominoes are falling just right for Mitt as they did for [John] McCain,? said the House member. ?The party establishment does not want this intra-warfare much longer so we can focus on just Obama rather than the oddballs on the stage that can?t even remember the DOE or EPA.?
Indeed, Perry?s move was akin to dumping a bucket of cold water on Santorum, who won a significant moral victory in losing to Romney by just eight votes in Iowa and has already raised $1 million since last night.
In announcing that he was going forward with his campaign and heading to South Carolina, Perry ensured that the crucial primary there later this month would feature a third conservative vying to be the Romney alternative ? fracturing the vote of the party base.
Santorum supporters breathed a sigh of relief when Perry seemed to indicate in his Election Night speech that he would ditch his disappointing campaign after a distant fifth in the caucuses.
But with Perry making a stand in South Carolina and Gingrich likely to forge ahead there, too, Santorum?s effort to coalesce conservative support will be made difficult. Sources tell POLITICO that Perry has about $3.5 million in cash.
?I still think it?s a two-man race,? said Gresham Barrett, a former South Carolina congressman and top Santorum supporter, calling Perry ?extremely wounded.?
But Barrett acknolwedged that the Texan would be competing for the same trove of votes as Santorum, and that it would be easier on Santorum if Perry were out of the race.
Part of the challenge for the former Pennsylvania senator is that there is no modern conservative kingmaker capable of clearing the field. While less than thrilled with the idea of Romney as the nominee, movement conservatives haven?t been able to figure out who they?d like as an alternative. And some don?t want to be too heavy-handed in intervening in the race.
?There?s only one person I?m interested in stopping and that?s Barack Obama,? said Bauer, a former presidential hopeful.
Bauer said a meeting planned for next weekend by social conservative leaders to find a ?consensus? candidate was not intended to be a strategy session for how to take down Romney. Even as some attendees claimed that was just the idea behind convening the eleventh-hour meeting in Texas, Bauer said he?d withdraw from participating if it was intended to plot against the former Massachusetts governor.
One conservative who was invited, though, said this was exactly what the group ought to be doing.
?It?s what they should have done in 2008 with McCain, but they were too weak,? complained this conservative.
Romney supporters and establishment Republicans who want a clean and quick nomination process exulted Wednesday about the inability of the right to come together behind a single insurgent.
personhood herman cain press conference joe frazier dead joe frazier dead topamax lexapro trazodone
No comments:
Post a Comment