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politics and politicians Title: Romney’s Double Win Sets Up Next Big Test in Super Tuesday Races Mitt Romney’s double-barreled victory in the Arizona and Michigan primaries yesterday gave him a burst of momentum in the Republican presidential race as the contest shifts to Southern states and Ohio (STOOH1), where his appeal among evangelical and working class voters will be tested anew. Two months into the voting and nine months into Romney’s second presidential run, the results confirmed his status as fragile front-runner, toiling to win over Republican voters as he heads into potentially pivotal Super Tuesday races March 6. Those 11 races -- which yield a total haul of more than 400 delegates -- are shaping up as a last stand for Rick Santorum, the latest Romney rival to threaten the Massachusetts ex- governor -- as well as a chance for Romney to either solidify, or continue to grasp for, a hold on the nomination. Either way, even Romney allies say there are no guarantees and the process will likely drag on for several weeks. Super Tuesday “will probably be definitive to establish that Romney’s in a commanding position, but it won’t be over for a while,” said Charlie Black, who is advising the Romney campaign. “They’re prepared to go state to state in all the Super Tuesday states and beyond, and just grind it out.” Romney, 64, has had to do more grinding than his campaign anticipated, most recently in his native Michigan (USUSMICH), where a late surge by Santorum, 53, a former Pennsylvania senator, threatened to yield an embarrassing Romney defeat. Instead, he won by 3 points -- still a narrow margin for the son of a former governor and Detroit automobile executive -- with most of the precincts reporting. His task was easier in Arizona, where he was leading by 22 points. The latest polls show Romney trailing his rivals in states that award the most delegates next week, including Ohio, where he’s running behind Santorum, and Georgia, where former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich leads, followed by Santorum. Among the group Santorum has targeted are working class voters, defined by pollsters as those without college degrees. Months into a contest that has seen Romney challenged by a rotating cast of candidates who have risen and fallen, he still needs to persuade Republican voters that he’s striving for their support, said pollster Ed Goeas. “The test for Romney has always been not to convince them that he is the most conservative, the test has always been to convince them that he’s not just taking them for granted, and he’s fighting for it,” said Goeas, of the Alexandria-based Tarrance Group who conducts the bipartisan Battleground Poll. “They haven’t been sending the message that he’s fighting for the nomination.” Through all the ups and downs, Goeas said, voters have maintained a view that Romney is the most electable candidate, with more than half saying they see him as the likely nominee. Still, the prospect of a prolonged primary concerns many strategists, who argue that the tone of the race is damaging the party’s candidates, alienating independent voters and undercutting Republican hopes of defeating President Barack Obama. Obama’s prospects have brightened since November, according to the Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll released Feb. 27. He was ahead of both of the leading Republicans, winning support from 53 percent in a hypothetical matchup with Romney, who drew 43 percent, and 53 percent in a head-to-head contest with Santorum, who got 42 percent. “We need to look at this as a warning sign that we need to get this over with, and get back to focusing on us versus Obama,” Goeas said. Before that can happen, Santorum is angling for a chance to compete directly against Romney in March, pushing to consolidate the support of anti-abortion activists and other Romney- resistant Republican voters and pull off upset victories that could frustrate the front-runner yet again. “What March needs to be is where we get a one-on-one shot with Mitt Romney,” said John Brabender, Santorum’s chief strategist. To accomplish that the campaign must “have conservatives and Tea Party supporters who don’t want to vote for Romney say, ‘Look, we’ve got to pick somebody. Rick Santorum’s the one emerging. We’ve got to get behind him.’ ” While Super Tuesday successes may not allow Romney to clinch the nomination, they could reveal his competitors’ weaknesses, thus building his momentum, said Steve Duprey, who advised Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, during his presidential bid and now serves as a Republican National Committeeman from New Hampshire. “Senator Santorum has somewhat solidified the non-Romney constituency, and these contests are going to test that,” Duprey said. “We’re going to see a trend -- either Romney will have to slog through ‘til May but he’ll be the nominee, or if Santorum wins some important states, this could be a wide-open race.” The Republican Party’s decision to rewrite its rules to allow for more gradual awarding of delegates, drawing out the nominating process, “in hindsight may not have been a great idea,” putting the eventual nominee at a fundraising and image disadvantage relative to Obama, Duprey added. “Romney’s had a tougher go, and I think that also reflects the reality that we have a Republican base that is of many different voices.” While Romney and his competitors probably all “have some negatives from having fought it out against each other for a while,” Black said, there’s no evidence that a quicker nominating process would better the eventual winner’s chances. “There’s always, among Republican primary voters, a large segment of them who are not voting on electability -- they’re looking for the most conservative candidate.” That continues to be a problem for Romney, who said yesterday as voters went to the polls in Michigan (BEESMI) that it was “very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments” and “outrageous things,” adding that he would not be engaging in such behavior. “I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support,” he said. “I am who I am.” Bob Bennett, a former Ohio Republican Party chairman, said the prolonged race will serve to improve the eventual nominee. “It’s like sharpening a steel blade, you toughen it up for its intended use,” Bennett said. “Super Tuesday is going to separate the men from the boys.”
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