Romney and Gingrich to devise New Strategies for Florida

Did South Carolina decide the Republican presidential nominee, as it has since 1980, or did it engage in a primal scream that slows but does not derail Mitt Romney’s momentum? Florida won’t settle that question entirely, but its Jan. 31 primary will say more than Gingrich would like to admit.

In the next phase of his campaign, look for Romney to release his tax returns, participate in fewer debates, try to tell his own story with more passion, and, with the help of his super PAC allies, go after Gingrich more directly.

It’s all part of a recovery plan. Romney saw a double-digit lead inSouth Carolina collapse in less than a week and he saw his national numbers decline against Gingrich among registered and leaning Republican voters. He heads here now bitten by fumbling debate performances, a mangled message on his personal tax returns and the most important question his campaign has long confronted but never been able to answer: What does Romney do if he can’t unite economic, social and national security conservatives?

Gingrich united all three in South Carolina and his double-digit victory there will go down in party lore as one of the historic snap-back moments for the conservative movement. It’s not as if conservatives didn’t have a voice in Iowa or New Hampshire. They did. But they came together in bigger numbers and with a greater sense of fulmination and rage at what they perceive is the establishment Republican tendency to dismiss or delegitimize conservatives in the nominating process. This grievance has burned with varying degrees of intensity in every nominating contest since 1964 and if it were ever to find its full expression, South Carolina would be the place.

The Gingrich appeal in South Carolina can translate in northern and rural Florida but may find voters less receptive in the central Interstate Four corridor and more cosmopolitan and Latino southern Florida. Money won’t determine the outcome entirely, but it will play a substantial role. South Carolina proves money isn’t determinative. Romney spent twice as much Gingrich and lost by double-digits. And Gingrich will reap huge financial gains from South Carolina. Top Republicans believe Gingrich could raise as much as $10 million in the next two weeks. Gingrich appealed for money in his closing remarks, adding tartly “We don’t have the kind of money that at least one candidate has.”

Before that money comes in, Gingrich has to live off the airwaves, using the “elite” media to carry his message. Gingrich was booked on NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation and CNN’s State of the Union. Condemning the “elite” media and using it simultaneously as a lifeline until he can raise more campaign cash is a tactic that might make some candidates blush. Not Gingrich. That bristling self-confidence proved to be an asset in South Carolina.

It remains a defining part of his persona and contributes to his high negative ratings on the likability question (56 percent unfavorable to 27 percent in this week’s Fox News poll) and his lagging support among women (he runs 18 points behind President Obama in this week’s CNN/Time poll). Until these attitudes about Gingrich change, his electability will remain a deep and abiding concern among top-tier Republicans. Part of that anxiety was visible in the days before South Carolina voted when swing-state Republicans like Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia backed Romney.   

Romney has been spending money in Florida for three weeks, buying up ad time in every major media market. It requires $1.5 million to hit the saturation point of 1,000 gross ratings points in the top Florida media markets and Romney has it and has set a goal of hitting that mark each week between now and the Jan. 31 primary. Romney’s campaign, overseen in the Sunshine state by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, a former member of the U.S. House, also has heavily organized early voting. By primary day, Romney strategists believe they will have upwards of 500,000 early votes already in the bag.

Romney will also remind Florida Republicans — independents cannot vote in the primary — about Gingrich’s $1.6 million in consultancy payments from the government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac That issue damaged Gingrich in Iowa and nationally before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and could cut deeply in a state that’s suffered through a deep foreclosure crisis. In fact, three hours after the polls closed in South Carolina, the pro-Romney super PAC Restore our Future was airing ads in Tampa knocking Gingrich on his association with  Freddie Mac, his House reprimand over an ethics violation 15 years ago and his ties with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The Romney camp will also take a very hard look at future debates. It reluctantly agreed to Monday’sNational Journal/NBC/Tampa Bay Times debate and the CNN debate on Thursday. No final decisions have been made, but the strong impression given by Romney advisers is after these two debates, Romney will no longer give his rivals the free-media benefits of endless debate platforms and seek to defeat them the old fashioned way — with money and organization.

Romney stepped up his rhetoric against Gingrich in his concession speech Saturday night. “Our president has divided the nation, engaged in class warfare and attacked the free enterprise system that has made America the economic envy of the world,” he said. “We cannot defeat that president with a candidate who has joined in that very assault on free enterprise.”

Still, Romney advisers know they can only vanquish Gingrich by doing more to quiet concerns raised by his shaky answers on personal wealth and his income tax history. The campaign delayed a release of tax documents to make sure it would not happen in waves and that whatever publicity surrounding it could be contained in a one-day news cycle. That was a strategy built around the long game. It cost them precious ground and voter credibility in South Carolina. Those close to the campaign say the move is afoot to get the documents and the narrative ready as soon as possible — and for more years than the one Gingrich has released. In essence, in a new state of Florida the Romney team wants to argue it said more and released more than Gingrich and Santorum (who says his forms will come out in months) and Paul (who won’t release them at all). Until that happens, the questions will persist.

And on this issue, on questions about Romney’s stewardship of the private equity firm Bain Capital, a disturbing pattern has begun to emerge — Romney’s surrogates answer questions more sharply and with more evident passion than Romney. That can and does work on arcane policy questions. It does not work on matters at the heart of a candidate’s own story. Team Romney knows that was never more visibly on display than in South Carolina.

As the candidates head to Florida, Romney and his team know they have to learn from defeat and adapt quickly even as they use their money and organization. Florida is all about Romney and Gingrich. Gingrich has the momentum and all that comes with it – money, curiosity, volunteers and scrutiny. The first three are blessings. The last could be a curse – it has been before. Romney arrives wounded and humbled. His campaign team is cranky and Romney will have to steady the ship and find a stronger voice about his life story, his financial history and his philosophical core.

These have been the weaknesses at the heart of the Romney campaign from the start. That South Carolina exposed them so gruesomely might, in the end, be just what Romney needed. If not, South Carolina did more than let loose a primal scream.

Damaged Romney ALL-IN for Florida…. Gloves Come Off

Mitt Romney’s expected romp to the Republican presidential nomination turned into a long and hard slog on Saturday, and he leaves South Carolina as a damaged and suddenly vulnerable candidate.

But beyond the take-back-our-country frenzy that Newt Gingrichwas able to whip up among conservative voters in the Palmetto State, Romney still has significant advantages over Gingrich as the race heads to Florida and beyond.

Romney’s past week in South Carolina hardly could have been worse.

In two debates the private equity executive with an estimated worth of $270 million fumbled questions about when he would release his tax returns, acknowledged that his tax rate was well below those of most wage-earning Americans, and generally allowed Gingrich to cast him as an out-of-touch elitist.

Meanwhile, the long list of Gingrich’s peccadilloes that polls have said make him unelectable to many Americans — his cheating on his first two wives, the ethics probe when he was U.S. House of Representatives speaker, his unapologetic tendency to say things some view as racially insensitive – were swept aside by his strong performances in televised debates before conservative crowds.

By the time Gingrich’s dominating win in South Carolina was tabulated late on Saturday, it was clear that the race for the Republican nomination is led by two flawed candidates.

It also was clear that Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is better equipped than Gingrich for the bumpy ride ahead in the race to determine which Republicanwill face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

As the campaign heads to a January 31 primary in Florida – a large, diverse state where campaigning is particularly expensive – Romney will have more chances to flex his financial and organizational muscle over Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who finished third in South Carolina.

The campaigns are not due to file expense reports until the end of the month. But some of the spending by the political action committees (PACs) that support them has been reported to federal election officials, and shows that the PAC backing Romney has spent millions in Florida since mid-December, far more than any other PAC.

“What this looks like now is what Romney has planned for all along – a long, hard campaign,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said. “Romney has the money and the organization in place in states where other candidates haven’t even thought about going yet.”

ROMNEY’S NETWORK

For Gingrich, the challenge will be turning the momentum he won in South Carolina into a self-sustaining organization that can raise money and build support beyond the early states.

In the first week of February, five more states hold nominating contests – Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Arizona and Michigan have contests late in the month.

Romney has been organizing in those states for months. Gingrich is far behind in doing so, and failed to even make the ballot in Missouri.

Beyond his organization, Romney has other advantages in the February contests. As a presidential candidate in 2008, he won Nevada easily with more than 50 percent of the vote. He grew up in Michigan, where his father, George, was a governor and auto executive.

Four of the states – Nevada, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota – are caucus states where get-out-the-vote campaign organizations can be critical.

“Momentum and excitement only take you so far,” said Saul Anuzis, former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

“Gingrich’s biggest challenge going forward is his record, but he also has an organizational challenge in that he has not put together a national campaign,” he said.

In claiming victory late Saturday, Gingrich acknowledged as much.

“I need your help in reaching out to people in Florida,” Gingrich told supporters. “We don’t have the kind of money that at least one of the candidates does. But we do have ideas and we do have people and we’ve proved here in South Carolina that people power with the right ideas beats big money. And with your help we’re going to prove it again in Florida. “

There are two debates in Florida this week, which could be good news for Gingrich if he can continue performing well in such settings.

Romney will be under immense pressure to shine in the debates or face growing doubts from a Republican establishment that so far has been falling in line behind him.

Romney signaled on Saturday he will take a far more aggressive approach against Gingrich and remind voters of the former House speaker’s mixed record. In South Carolina, Romney raised Gingrich’s ethics violations as House speaker.

“Our party can’t be led to victory by someone who has never run a business and never run a state,” Romney said after the South Carolina results were in, comparing Gingrich with Obama.

Florida is more diverse and less conservative state than South Carolina with large concentrations of elderly, Hispanic and Jewish voters – putting Social Security and immigration in the spotlight – and an unemployment rate of 10 percent, far above the national average.

Romney leads Gingrich in opinion polls in Florida by double digits, but Gingrich showed in South Carolina he can wipe out a lead of that size in a week.

GINGRICH’S GREAT WEEK

Gingrich made headway against Romney in South Carolina by attacking his work for Bain Capital, a private equity firm, and questioning his refusal to release his tax returns.

It’s unclear whether those issues will play well in Florida.

“Newt had one of the best weeks in politics I’ve ever seen and Romney had one of the worst,” said Republican strategist Rich Galen, a former Gingrich aide. “But how many times can you say, ‘When will you release your taxes?’ It’s been asked and answered.”

Romney has had staff and phone banks operating in Florida for months. The campaign also has encouraged voters to cast ballots before Election Day, flooding them with mail and phone calls for months. Early voting has already started in Florida.

“Gingrich will carry momentum into Florida, but his campaign doesn’t appear to be as durable for the long haul,” said Republican strategist Adam Temple of South Carolina.

“He’s not on the ballot in Virginia, appears to be lacking in Nevada organization and continues to carry baggage that won’t go away,” he said.

The South Carolina result showed Romney still has trouble winning over conservatives who remember his past support for abortion rights and an individual healthcare mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts.

“There is still a fairly hard ceiling to Romney’s support among Republican voters,” said Dan Schnur, an aide to eventual Republican nominee John McCain during his 2000 campaign. “But I don’t know that they are rejecting Romney as much as demanding more evidence. They want him to earn it.”

Santorum Prepares for Tough Florida Fight

 Newt Gingrich has the momentum.Mitt Romney has the money.

Rick Santorum? He has neither at the moment.

Not that he’s going to let details like that stop him from pressing ahead in his White House quest. Or, for that matter, hurdles like scant cash in an expensive state and a rapidly disappearing opportunity to emerge as the consensus candidate of conservative voters now that Gingrich has emerged as the leading anti-Romney candidate.

“Our feeling is that this is a three-person race,” Santorum insisted on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He added that he felt “absolutely no pressure at all” to abandon his bid given Gingrich’s rise.

Still, Santorum acknowledged a hard road ahead in what he called “a tough state for everybody.”

“It’s very, very expensive. It’s a very short time frame,” he said.

The former Pennsylvania senator placed third in Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

Gingrich scored his first win, entering the Florida campaign with the political winds pushing the former House speaker from behind. Romney, who has raised mounds of cash, came in second and was ready to regroup with sophisticated political machines in the upcoming states, Florida included.

Underscoring Santorum’s challenges, he was taking a few days away from the campaign trail in Florida this week to restock his thin campaign bank accounts. He plans fundraisers in other states, leaving Gingrich and Romney with free rein in Florida, while he stops in states such as Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Money is a necessity in a state like Florida with numerous expensive media markets and where campaigns are usually won on TV.

That’s not a natural fit for Santorum, who has run his campaign on a shoestring and won the Iowa caucuses — albeit narrowly — by spending more than a year making house calls to voters and traveling the state in a pickup truck.

To make up ground and perhaps earn some free media, Santorum is going on the attack.

Standing in a strip mall’s parking lot here Sunday before heading to fundraising events, Santorum cast Romney as an inconsistent figure who would not be an effective foil to President Barack Obama’s re-election bid and argued that Gingrich was too “high risk” to be the Republican standard-bearer.

“Trust is a big issue in this election,” Santorum told several hundred people. “Who are you going to trust when the pressure is on, when we’re in that debate? It’s great to be glib, but it’s better to be principled.”

He also met privately Sunday with pastors and delivered a sermon at Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, where he emphasized his conservatism. Santorum, who sprinkles his campaign speeches with his Catholic faith, is banking on evangelicals to coalesce around him over the thrice-married Gingrich or Romney, a Mormon.

“Can he win? Only God knows,” said David Babbin, a voter here who works at the nearby children’s hospital and likes Santorum. “But I believe in miracles.”

Still, he noted one of the candidate’s challenges: “Rick Santorum is one of us. And that’s his biggest flaw … We live in a society that is ‘American Idol’ and Rick Santorum is not like that.”

Santorum has other hurdles beyond what even admirers call his lack of charisma.

His tough talk on Social Security and Medicare — ending benefits for wealthier retirees, cutting payments to those who don’t need them — is going to dog him here in a state of 3.3 million seniors, or 17 percent of the population. AARP estimates that more than a third of those seniors would have incomes below the poverty line without Social Security and one in three seniors rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.

Santorum didn’t mention those proposals at his first public campaign event since the primary in South Carolina.

Environmentalist Fearful of GOP Lineup

Four years after the GOP’s rallying cry became “drill, baby, drill,” environmental issues have barely registered a blip in this Republican presidential primary.

That’s likely to change as the race turns to Florida.

The candidates’ positions on environmental regulation, global warming as well as clean air and water are all but certain to get attention ahead of the Jan. 31 primary in a state where the twin issues of offshore oil drilling and Everglades restoration are considered mandatory topics for discussion.

“It’s almost like eating fried cheese in Iowa,” said Jerry Karnas of the Everglades Foundation. Drilling has long been banned off Florida’s coasts because of fears that a spill would foul its beaches, wrecking the tourism industry, while the federal and state governments are spending billions to clean the Everglades.

Though most expect the candidates to express support for Everglades restoration — as Mitt Romney did in his 2008 campaign — environmentalists are noting a further rightward shift overall among the GOP field. The candidates have called for fewer environmental regulations, questioned whether global warming is a hoax and criticized the agency that implements and enforces clean air and water regulations.

“A cycle ago, there were people who actually believed in solving some of these problems,” said Navin Nayak of the League of Conservation Voters. “Now we’re faced with a slate that doesn’t even believe in basic science.”

The candidates, of course, dispute such a characterization. But their stances have generally grown more conservative. And even when they haven’t, they often offer positions that aren’t in line with conservationists.

—Romney heralded the passage of stricter limits on carbon emissions in 2005 when he was governor of Massachusetts but last year said it was a mistake. He previously agreed with the scientific consensus on global warming and humans’ contribution to it but now says “we don’t know what’s causing climate change.”

—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich supported tougher environmental regulation early in his congressional career and appeared in a 2008 TV spot with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleading for action on climate change. Now he’s says appearing with the San Francisco liberal was “the dumbest thing I’ve done in the last couple of years” and is calling for lifting restrictions on offshore drilling and branding the Environmental Protection Agency a “job killer” that must be replaced.

—Texas Rep. Ron Paul said during his 2008 campaign that “human activity probably does play a role” in global warming. Now he calls the science on manmade global warming a “hoax.”

—Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum shows fewer signs of a shift on such issues. He has called for more drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and doubts research that points to a human role in global warming, calling it “junk science.”

An analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found about $2.8 million in campaign donations were made by those in the energy and natural resources sector, according to Federal Elections Commission data, with about 84 percent of it going to Republicans.

Meantime, the EPA, which is responsible for policing environmental rules, has been singled out for Republican criticism this campaign season. Paul has called for its outright elimination as part of his plan to drastically curtail the federal government. Romney has said it’s “out of control.” Santorum has railed against the EPA’s limits on mercury from coal-fired power plants. And Gingrich has called for overhauling the EPA, saying it should be converted to an “environmental solutions agency.”

Nayak says: “There’s no doubt that this kind of slate of presidential candidates is one of the most regressive and most closely tied to polluters that we’ve seen at least in decades.”

Some Republican presidents and nominees have been strong environmentalists. Teddy Roosevelt was seen as a role model to environmentalists, using his presidency to establish wildlife refuges, preserve forests, and conserve water. Richard Nixon helped create the EPA that has been vilified by his successors on the campaign trail today. And the last Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, was the chief co-sponsor of a bill that sought mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Michelle Pautz, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who focuses on environmental policy, said the current slate of Republicans may not be giving much reason to applaud their environmental stances, but it may not matter much overall with the economy taking center stage.

“The bottom line is both with the GOP primary and looking to Obama and the general election, the green vote is a non-issue,” Pautz said. “There are too many other issues crowding out the environmental ones.”

But Tony Cani, the national political director for the Sierra Club, said taking what he calls “extreme” views on the environment won’t play well come Nov. 6.

“They’re going to be hurt with young voters, women, families, Latino voters,” Cani said.

Jim DiPeso, of Republicans for Environmental Protection, said he hopes to see a shift as Election Day draws closer, but that the state of politics right now has made ecological issues untouchable.

“A lot of the more pragmatic mainstream Republicans just are trying to steer clear of the issue because it’s become so politically fraught,” he said.

Pro Gingrich Super Pac gets 5 Million from Vegas Casino Owner

A Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, Winning our Future, will receive $5 million from Nevada-based billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, John Ralston reported Monday night.

“$5M more from Adelson coming this week to help Newt,” Ralston reported on Twitter, adding in another post, “I’m hearing the $5M check is coming from Adelson’s wife, Miriam, as early as tomorrow.”

The cash will serve as a major boost to Gingrich’s efforts in Florida, a state full of pricey media markets.

Romney Chooses Attack Mode to Counter Gingrich

Just five days ago, Mitt Romney said if he could do one thing over about his campaign, he would spend less time attacking his opponents and more time talking about President Barack Obama.

“I would go back and take every moment I spent talking about one of the guys on the stage and spent that time talking about Barack Obama,” Romney said Thursday at a presidential debate sponsored by CNN. ”The right course for America is to return to our fundamental principles, and I would be talking about that more, and probably about my colleagues less–because frankly, any one of them would be a better president than the one we’ve got.”

That was before Romney lost by double-digits to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Over the last 48 hours, Romney has gone from barely mentioning his rivals on the stump or in news interviews to launching an all-out assault on Gingrich, portraying him as an erratic and unethical leader who would be dangerous for the party.

Speaking to reporters this morning before tonight’s NBC debate in Tampa, Romney warned of an “October surprise a day” if Gingrich wins the Republican nomination, citing ethics investigations dating back to Gingrich’s days as speaker of the House. Romney also hammered Gingrich for his consulting work after he left office, calling on the former lawmaker to release records detailing his work for Freddie Mac and on behalf of clients lobbying for health care and Medicare reform.

“Let’s see the records from the ethics investigation. Let’s see what they show. Let’s see who his clients were at the time he was lobbying Republican congressmen for Medicare Part D. Was he working or were his entities working with any health care companies that could have benefited from that?” Romney said. “That could represent not just evidence of lobbying but potentially wrongful activity of some kind. And finally, let’s also see the relationship with Freddie Mac and the work product of Freddie Mac. Let’s have full disclosure of what’s going on.”

Romney did not specify what kind of “wrongful activity” he suspected on Gingrich’s part, and the Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.

Romney derided Gingrich’s defense that he was not formally registered as a lobbyist with the House or Senate.

“Saying that Newt Gingrich is a lobbyist is just a matter of fact. He indicates that he doesn’t fall within the narrow definition of lobbyists that he might have in mind. But if you’re working for a company, getting paid for a company through one of your many entities and then you’re speaking with congressmen in a way that would help that company, that’s lobbying,” Romney insisted. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”

In a subsequent conference call, Romney campaign surrogates said Gingrich was not fit for office.

And the campaign unveiled a new TV ad about Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac, set to begin airing Monday in Florida. The ad mocks Gingrich’s claim that he was hired as a historian by the company and implies that he profited off the suffering of Floridians hit hard by the housing crisis.

“While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in,” the ad says.

Playing a clip of Gingrich saying he worked as a “historian,” a narrator intones, “A historian? Really?”

The ad also mentions Gingrich’s ethics problems and says he “resigned from Congress in disgrace.”

In response, the Gingrich campaign organized its own conference call with former Rep. J.C. Watts, a top Gingrich surrogate, who defended Gingrich’s claims that he didn’t work as a lobbyist, calling Romney’s attacks “silly.”

“I guess technically, some might see it as splitting hairs, but Newt Gingrich was not walking the halls of the House and Senate, going from Republican and Democrat,” Watts said. “He was never doing the hand-to-hand combat lobbying or consulting, whatever you want to call it.”

“Beating up Newt Gingrich for consulting … I think that’s about like saying let’s beat up Michael Jordan for being a great basketball player,” Watts went on to say. “You want somebody that’s been there, done that.”

Romney’s attacks on Gingrich are not likely to let up, especially as the candidates meet on stage to debate Monday night in Tampa and again on Thursday in Jacksonville.

In recent days, the former Massachusetts governor has sought to recast his candidacy as someone from outside Washington fighting party insiders like Gingrich—a theme that likely to dominate Romney’s message in Florida and throughout the rest of the primaries.

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, who has endorsed Romney in the race, raised the issue in a conference call Monday, telling reporters it is difficult to believe Gingrich could be an agent of “change” in Washington, given his long history there.

“We need principled leaders, not political opportunists,” Weatherford said.

He laughed at Gingrich’s claim of working as a historian for Freddie Mac, saying that he didn’t believe anybody in the state would buy that excuse.

“$1.6 million for a history lesson?” he said. “He should have been giving them a math lesson.”

Romney Reassess His Campaign Strategy

 Mitt Romney is pressing reset.

After a crushing loss to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina, the former Massachusetts governor made clear Sunday that he plans to attack his chief rival’s character, release his tax returns this week and try to right a campaign he acknowledged had been knocked off kilter.

“It was not a great week for me,” Romney acknowledged during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

And at a rally here, his first event in Florida after the loss to Gingrich, Romney assailed the former speaker’s leadership abilities. “We’re not choosing a talk show host, alright?” he said. “We’re choosing a leader.”

Romney now turns to Florida at what is possibly the most critical moment of his campaign, after two weeks of sustained attacks from his opponents and a series of self-inflicted errors that erased any notion that he would be able to lock up the nomination quickly by winning this state’s Jan. 31 primary.

“I’m looking forward to a long campaign,” Romney said on Fox News. “We are selecting the president of the United States. Someone who is going to face ups and downs and real challenges, and I hope that through this process, I can demonstrate that I can take a setback and come back strong.”

Even if Romney does manage a victory here — his Florida campaign is by far the strongest of any in the GOP field, and he and his allies have been alone on the air for weeks — the race has become a two-way fight between him and Gingrich, the former House speakerwith a huge dose of momentum.

And now Romney’s team is girding for a long and costly fight that extends well beyond Florida. Saturday night’s shellacking in South Carolina underscored the former Massachusetts governor’s vulnerabilities and undermined his claims of becoming the inevitable Republican nominee.

Over the next 10 days, the candidates — including former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul — will meet twice on the debate stage, a venue where Gingrich has thrived in recent weeks and Romney has struggled some when pressed about questions about his wealth and private business experience. The debates — Monday in Tampa and Thursday in Jacksonville — present fresh opportunities for both breakout performances and mistakes.

Romney brought out his more aggressive posture and lines of attack toward Gingrich at the Sunday rally. “Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader. At the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader,” Romney said, referring to the ethics investigation that resulted in a rare reprimand for a House speaker.

It’s clear the campaign is worried voters have forgotten Gingrich’s history. “He had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that,” Romney said.

“I’m asking the people of Florida to consider: what are the qualities of leadership?” he said. “What makes an effective president, a great president, even? Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and FDR, even?”

It was an angrier, more aggressive Romney who took the stage at the rally here. He shouted back and forth with the crowd after Occupy Wall Street hecklers interrupted him and rattled off a list of leadership qualities, drawing cheers after each, in a rare back-and-forth with the crowd.

Romney attacked Gingrich’s time working for the quasi-government mortgage giant Freddie Mac, calling again for him to release records related to his consulting work for them.

Behind the scenes, aides also indicated that Romney would go after Gingrich’s character in Florida as a way to distinguish himself — a father of five who has been married to the same woman for 42 years — from his thrice-married rival. And the aides argued that the results in South Carolina don’t indicate Republican primary voters everywhere are willing to overlook Gingrich’s two divorces and acknowledged infidelity. Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne, told ABC News in an interview aired Thursday that the former speaker asked her for an open marriage so he could continue having an affair with the House staffer who is now his third wife.

Publicly, Romney has refused to engage on the subject thus far, saying at a debate Thursday: “Let’s get onto the real issues. That’s all I got to say.”

But Romney has started poking at Gingrich’s character by raising questions about the ethics investigation against Gingrich in the 1990s, when he was House speaker, and suggested that the former Georgia lawmaker was hiding something by refusing to release reams of documents he apparently gave to investigators back then.

Asked Sunday whether character would become an issue, Romney said, “No question.”

“Leadership is the key attribute that people should look for in considering a president,” Romney said, “and character is a big part of leadership, as is vision, sobriety, steadiness.”

Romney’s team also plans to contrast his experience as a governor and businessman with Gingrich’s experience in Congress and his later work with former colleagues on behalf of businesses.

Romney, meanwhile, also is working to fix a key vulnerability — defensiveness over questions about his personal wealth, including money in funds in the Cayman Islands, a popular haven for international investment.

Under pressure to release his tax returns immediately, Romney reversed course and said he would release those documents for 2010 and an estimate for 2011 on Tuesday — months ahead of their planned April release.

The documents will lay out just how Romney, a multimillionaire many times over, makes his money and reveal his actual tax rate, which Romney estimated at about 15 percent.

His wife, Ann Romney, addressed the issue at the Florida rally, suggesting family was more important than money.

“I understand Mitt’s going to release his tax forms this week,” she said as she introduced him. “I want to remind you where we know our riches are. Our riches are with our families.”

“That’s where we measure our wealth, is through those children,” she said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a backer who had called on Romney to immediately release his returns, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Romney made the right decision, saying, “I’m happy he’s doing it.”

Will Florida Be Romney’s Waterloo…

Mitt Romney never lets you see him sweat, but he is under some perspiration-inducing pressure as he prepares to step onto a debate stage Monday evening in Tampa. Maybe that is why he had a photo op to show him washing his own clothes at the  hotel . But lets dig deeper and see if this face off with Newt and Santorum is like a high stakes poker game. Given the lack of personality  of Romney maybe he would be better to play poker than to debate again

Romney needs a forceful performance to regain the initiative after his double-digit drubbing in South Carolina at the hands of Newt Gingrich. But if the former governor gets too histrionic or too harsh, he will seem inauthentic, forfeiting the one quality—that of a steady, self-assured businessman—that has served him well.

We already know what Gingrich will do. Newt will be Newt, by turns forceful, hectoring and, by his own admission, grandiose, with a couple of condescending slaps at the NBC moderators thrown in just to protect the brand. Gingrich is a strong debater, agile enough even to turn a question about past marital infidelity into an applause line. Without the twin debates in South Carolina last week, he probably would have lost the primary.

The question now at the heart of this campaign: What’s Mitt got left?

Beyond the darts he throws Gingrich’s way, can Romney raise the level of his game in a way that forces Republican voters to reconsider him? Or is he a captive of his own limitations, a smart, seasoned, and awesomely uninspiring politician?

It would be a mistake for a media mob that has twice written off Gingrich—how dumb does that look now?—to overreact to the South Carolina results. The heavily evangelical and staunchly conservative electorate was tailor-made for the ex-Georgia congressman. Newt won’t have that advantage in the bigger and more diverse battleground of Florida, which votes Jan. 31. Mitt’s still got the money and the organization for the war of attrition ahead.

But NBC viewers on Monday will be looking at a candidate stripped of his aura of inevitability—a premise of electability that, it turns out, is central to his case for the nomination. He probably would love to skip the coming debates—the networks really control the calendar this year—but that would project a sense of panic.

Romney’s had a year to make the case to GOP voters and has fallen short. His vision of a presidential CEO appeals to the head but not the heart. Many Republican voters are mad—at President Obama, at the liberal establishment, at the media—and it is Gingrich who has skillfully channeled that anger. Newt comes armed for a knife fight, and Mitt shows up with a PowerPoint presentation. Can anyone imagine Romney calling a moderator’s question “despicable”?

Perhaps it is to Romney’s credit that he restrains his rhetoric, that he appeals to the sensible center where general elections are won. But candidates, especially primary candidates, need passion, and Romney seems a bit too calculating, even when it comes to so basic a question as releasing his tax returns. (He has a year to prepare for the question and then says “maybe”—seriously?) A more natural politician would use wit to brush off questions about his wealth; Romney’s responses seem forced and halting, his talk of pink-slip anxiety labored and ludicrous.

Undoubtedly, Romney will press Gingrich to release the details of his Freddie Mac non-lobbying contract, and papers from the House probe that led to his reprimand and $300,000 fine (though the 1,300-page ethics report is available online). But these jabs will seem like what they are, a transparent attempt to deflect attention from his own tax-return woes (Mr. 15 Percent says he’ll put out the 2010 return on Tuesday).

Romney offered a glimpse of this strategy against Gingrich on Sunday, saying in Florida that “at the end of four years it was proven he was a failed leader, and he had to resign in disgrace.”

The real challenge in the NBC faceoff, and a CNN debate later this week, is whether Romney can forge a connection with Republicans that goes beyond his Harvard pedigree and 59-point economic plan. Americans like a fighter, someone they can envision leading the charge in crisis situations, and Romney is afflicted with Dukakis disease, a competent technocrat in an era of anger.

He will, however, have one underappreciated advantage. Until now, Gingrich has been a protest candidate whose heated language rouses Republicans. On Monday night, though, the country will start looking at him as a potential president, someone who could grab the nomination and conceivably defeat Obama. As his advisers recognize, Newt still has to pass the commander-in-chief threshold, and he tends to be his own worst enemy when he’s riding high. The prospect of President Gingrich could make Romney look like a stable suitor—one who stays married after the excitement has worn off. The problem for Romney is that the party’s base remains worried about ideological infidelity.

Rick Santorum performed strongly in last week’s debates as well, but after weak showings in New Hampshire and South Carolina, his moment probably has passed. We are down to a two-man race in Florida, two contrasting characters who are selling very different versions of conservatism. Until Saturday, the overriding issue was whether Gingrich could emerge as the alternative to Romney. Now, for the first time, that question may be turned on its head.

Newts South Carolina Win Brings 5 New Possible Scenarios

Gingrich steamrolled Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP presidential field in Saturday’s Palmetto State primary. What happens now?

Just a short week ago, Mitt Romney had made history by sweeping the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential nominating contests, and was poised to go three-for-three when he picked up a seemingly inevitable win in South Carolina, says Dan Balz at The Washington Post. Then his Iowa win was revoked because of a vote-counting error, followed shortly by Newt Gingrich’s “stunning victory in South Carolina” on Saturday, when he crushed Romney 40 percent to 28 percent. Here, five ways Gingrich’s come-from-behind win changed the GOP contest:

1. Romney’s GOP sprint is now a long, hard slog

“If Romney had won South Carolina, the race for the Republican presidential nomination would have almost certainly been over,” says Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post. Now it’s a marathon. After Gingrich’s Palmetto State romp, “we are in for — at least — another six weeks of campaigning,” through Super Tuesday on March 6. Probably longer, says John Heilemann at New York. Romney has plenty of money, and he won’t drop out because “this is his last chance to be president.” Gingrich has little cash but a “magnet-like capacity to draw free media,” plus an outsized sense of his own destiny. And Gingrich and Romney “are quickly coming to hate each other. So buckle up; this should be fun.” But better now then in the general election as there are a lot of issues around Romney that never got full viability before Newt. 

2. Florida is the new tiebreaker

Rick Santorum (belatedly) won Iowa, Romney won New Hampshire, and now Gingrich has taken South Carolina. That means Florida’s Jan. 31 primary “will almost certainly decide the nominee,” says Hugh Hewitt at National Review. The upcoming Florida “brawl” could well be “the pivotal moment of the campaign,” agrees Alexander Burns at Politico. With his money and organizational advantages, Romney starts out as the “muscular favorite” to win the Sunshine State, and he’ll need the victory to reassure his panicking backers. But Newt’s a good fit for Florida’s Tea Party–leaning GOP electorate, and if he can ride his wave of momentum to a win — the latest polls show Newt skyrocketing into the lead — Gingrich’s “back-from-the-dead candidacy could become a true juggernaut.”  Obviously a te breaker as the top 3 all had one wine each, but there is always Ron Paul’s outside chance to make it 4 winners in 4 primaries  (I am not counting Colbert or Herman Cain obviously) 

3. Santorum’s prospects look bleak

Newt didn’t just crush Romney in South Carolina. By dominating “the other not-Romney candidates, Gingrich took a big step toward consolidating that part of the electorate,” says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post. Santorum’s 17 percent third-place showing is probably enough to keep his campaign alive through Florida, but if he “can’t catch either Romney or Gingrich in Florida his campaign becomes problematic.” With its large evangelical Christian vote, South Carolina “was Santorum’s best chance” to stay in the race, says William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. If he doesn’t drop out, he’ll just “play the spoiler, continuing to split the conservative vote.”  YET he may win in a brokered convention or a floor fight if Romney and Newt both seem too damaged to win.

4. The GOP elite may panic and court a “white knight”

If Gingrich crushes Romney in Florida, “the Republican Establishment is going to have a meltdown that makes Three Mile Island look like a marshmallow roast,” says New York‘s Heilemann. Rather than risk Gingrich rolling over the more-electable Romney in other states, says Steve Kornacki at Salon, the panicking GOP elite might just try drafting a “white knight” candidate to swoop in and win late big-state primaries to at least stop Newt from winning outright. South Carolina already proved that the GOP base won’t accept a “milquetoast moderate from Massachusetts” like Romney,says Erick Erickson at RedState. So if the party leaders won’t accept Gingrich, they should force “a brokered convention and find someone acceptable to everyone.”. This is similar to how #3 ended.. and it MAY be the best case scenario for the GOP given the in fighting  in the party itself. 

5. The race is about to get really ugly

Despite its reputation for dirty politics, South Carolina “was, by historical standards, decidedly tame” this year, says The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza. But things are “going to get real nasty, real quick” now. Romney has $19 million to spend on making sure Gingrich doesn’t win Florida, and his super PAC allies have millions more. If Gingrich can raise money off his South Carolina win, he “will respond in kind” and “fight Romney to the political death in Florida.” Bottom line: “If you hate negative campaigning, you may want to turn your television off for the next few weeks. Or maybe months.”. No matter what happens it has already and will continue to be until after the convention.

Tyler Perry’s personal message to George Lucas about “Red Tails”

Read Tyler Perry’s personal message in its entirety below.

The problem with all-star African American Casts…

Unfortunately, movies starring an all African American cast are on the verge of becoming extinct. THAT’S RIGHT, EXTINCT! Ask any executive at a Hollywood Studio why, and most of them will tell you one of two things. The first thing they’ll say is that DVD sales have become very soft, so it’s hard for a movie with an all black cast to break-even. Secondly they’ll say, most movies are now dependent on foreign sales to be successful and most “black” movies don’t sell well in foreign markets. So what that means is you will begin to see less and less films that star an all black cast. Isn’t that sad in a 2012 America? Somewhere along the way we still haven’t realized that we are more alike then not. I must tell you that I have been very fortunate to work with a studio that sees the value in my type of storytelling and filmmaking.  As well as having you, an audience of all races of people, who have stood by me arm and arm. It has helped me navigate through some pretty rough waters.

I thought that as black people in Hollywood, this is just our reality, but I quickly realized that this is not racism. What made me realize this is I had a conversation with Mr. Star Wars himself, George Lucas, and he was telling me that he was having the same problem with Red Tails. I was blown away! Red Tails is an important story about, not just black history, but American history about the Tuskegee Airmen. It has an all-star African American cast, including Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, which opens this Friday. He went on to say that he brought the movie idea of Red Tails to several studios and no one wanted to make this film… AND THIS IS GEORGE LUCAS! Not to be deterred, he put up his own money, shot the movie then took it back to those same studios, and they wanted nothing to do with it. One of them even refused to see the film, citing the above mentioned problems. So George decided to take a huge risk by entirely funding the movie and releasing it himself. What a guy! For him to believe so strongly in this story is amazing. I think we should pull together and get behind this movie. I really do! Not just African Americans, but all of us. I have seen the movie and screened it here in Atlanta. I loved it and I think you will too. The Tuskegee Airmen, who were at the screening, were so happy that somebody is telling a small part of their story.

It opens this Friday. Please take your kids, you will enjoy it and so will they. There is a lot of action and adventure and also a great history lesson to be learned.

George, I just want to say, thank you for having the courage to do this.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From Black Voices Pop Culture on Huff Post (Huffingtonpost.com)

Known as one of the most successful black filmmakers in Hollywood, Tyler Perry foresees a major shift in films starring an all African American cast. Perry recently penned an open letter on his site stemming from George Lucas’ recent statement on the lack of support that he received during the making of ‘Red Tails,’ stating that films starring an all black cast are on the verge of being extinct.

“Ask any executive at a Hollywood Studio why, and most of them will tell you one of two things. The first thing they’ll say is that DVD sales have become very soft, so it’s hard for a movie with an all black cast to break-even,” he explained. “Secondly they’ll say, most movies are now dependent on foreign sales to be successful and most ‘black’ movies don’t sell well in foreign markets. So what that means is you will begin to see less and less films that star an all black cast. Isn’t that sad in a 2012 America? Somewhere along the way we still haven’t realized that we are more alike then not.

To the New Orleans native’s advantage he has managed to navigate through conventional industry standards to produce and direct top-grossing box office films. In fact, Perry credits Lucas for his willingness to fund and produce a film based on the Tuskegee Airmen.

“George decided to take a huge risk by entirely funding the movie and releasing it himself,” he added. “What a guy! For him to believe so strongly in this story is amazing. I think we should pull together and get behind this movie. I really do! Not just African Americans, but all of us. I have seen the movie and screened it here in Atlanta. I loved it and I think you will too.”

Dear Jess

Dear Jessie:

The tweet about your mother was NOT one I was expecting when I checked a short while ago. I am very sad to have read it and do hope everything works out for the best,

I lost my father last spring. It was not as difficult for me as he had second stage Alzheimer’s and in some ways I was grateful for the speed he passed. He left this earth with his dignity intact.  It  ws not until about November that I started to feel the loss.

It was shortly there after I saw a tweet from you about being in the hospital  and your mother was with you and how grateful you were for her being there. You had a 6 week recovery yourself and during that recovery you started to talk abot your mothers medical condition and chemo.

You do not know me. You have received and acknowledged tweets from me from a different account and I have appreciated it. Unfortunately it is highly unlikely you will ever know me. But my spirit is with you in your sorrows and grief and pain and frustrations. I can not give you a hug and tell you it will be OK, I can not hold your hand through your diffidence to share with you my strength.

Your road ahead will be bumpy. That is the way life is for most of us. Things never go as we had hoped or planned. We need to go with the flow and let ourselves feel the emotions as they are real and remind us we are  human and in need of a greater purpose in our lives.

You have supporters you never knew you had. You have friends you never  knew were there. I am a friend. I am a person who from a great distance wishes you courage and strength through your current and coming difficulties.  But know this: You have support around you were you live and in this world. We may be strangers in real life but we are brother and sister on this earth.

Please  forgive my intrusion into your life  But I did want to share with you this rather lengthy  message and doing it on Twitter – well it was not possible for all I wanted to share with you today.

I do not mix my twitter account… so I  you will not know my other persona unless someone else shares it with you. It is not really important except to let you know that  although I am a stranger we did have twitter interaction in the past.  What is important is that no matter what account I write to you from that I am sincerely moved by these events in your life and pray and hope that you will find the strength from friends, family, strangers and God to help you  in this time of need.  You have a larger support system then you may ever imagine and all of us send you our concerns and strenth for you to use.

With  caring and concern;

Craig Eisele

Is Santorum a Distraction for Gingrich??

He may not have much money or a ground game to speak of in Florida but Republican Rick Santorum will not pull out of the presidential race – much to the chagrin of rival Newt Gingrich and probably to the delight of a bruised Mitt Romney.

After Gingrich scored a resounding win in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, the former U.S. House of Representatives speaker badly wants to unite conservative and Tea Party elements of the Republican Party behind him ahead of Florida’s January 31 vote.

That would be easier to do if the socially conservative Santorum slipped away, especially in the face of a well-financed

Florida campaign by Romney. But Santorum vowed to keep his shoestring campaign alive as it heads to the country’s fourth most populous state after finishing third on Saturday.

“This is a long haul,” Santorum said early on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

But the former Pennsylvania senator with a penchant for sweater vests has battled from the back of the pack to a surprise win in Iowa’s caucuses and a respectable 17 percent of the vote in South Carolina.

“A few weeks ago, this may have seemed implausible,” said Jack Glaser, a professor at University of California, Berkeley. “But with his showing in Iowa and Romney’s slide in South Carolina and with the very deep flaws and vulnerabilities in both Romney and Gingrich as candidates, it is not laughable.”

Moving on to Florida, Santorum picked up on attack lines he employed against his former congressional colleague last week. He called Gingrich “erratic” and “a very high-risk candidate” who is out of step with the many Republicans on Wall Street bailouts, health policy, immigration and global warming.

At a rally in Coral Springs on Sunday, Santorum laid claim to being “the real conservative – the (Ronald) Reagan model,” and said he was best placed to win what he termed “the states that matter” – 10 or 12 swing states, including Florida, that could be key to the November general election against Democratic President Barack Obama.

“His staying around is much to Romney’s delight and possibly Gingrich’s dismay. If Gingrich had his way, he would want Santorum out,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.

“And Romney would say, ‘Oh, don’t leave the race so soon’ … It’s like Cold War politics: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Santorum could be playing off the roller-coaster nature of the Gingrich campaign, which has been declared next to dead a few times since spring, as well as Romney’s stumbles going into the South Carolina vote.

“I think he might think he has a shot. He’s one (state) for three and so is everyone else except Ron Paul,” said Chris Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Santorum is in third place in Florida with about 15 percent support, behind Romney at 40 percent and Gingrich at 22 percent, according to surveys aggregated by Real Clear Politics. Those polls were taken before the South Carolina vote.

Michael Phillips, Santorum’s state director for Florida, said the campaign had only two offices for now, in Sarasota and in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, but had “very engaged” volunteers.

A SHOT AT REDEMPTION

“He might not be able to raise money, he might not be lining up endorsements in Florida, but he’s probably holding out hope that if Romney has a couple more bad weeks, it’s better to be in the game than out of it,” Galdieri said.

“He’s probably thinking that Gingrich, even though he won South Carolina, is not acceptable as a nominee because of various things in his personal and political background. He might be thinking that if a bunch of dominoes fall in the right order, he could be the other alternative candidate to Romney.”

Santorum has been praised by some for recent performances in Republican debates, and with fewer candidates on the podium as the field has dwindled, his national exposure will only rise as the debates roll on.

The four Republicans still standing will debate on Monday in Tampa and Thursday in Jacksonville.

Four more debates are scheduled by mid-March, all of which could better position Santorum for whatever comes next.

“He’s angling for some political capital, whether it’s a Cabinet position or it’s a run for another office down the road,” O’Connell said. “All you need is a plane ticket to move to the next spot. So why get out when you can still be a factor in this?”

Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Santorum said he felt “absolutely no pressure” to drop out, adding that after the South Carolina vote, Romney was “no longer the inevitable candidate.”

“Our feeling is that this is a three-person race. The conservatives are polling better than Governor Romney is. The real conservative is yet to emerge and that’s me. We think we present the finest opportunity for conservatives to win,” Santorum said.

In Coral Springs, the small crowd warmed to Santorum’s message. “We feel he’s genuine, more personable – more for the common citizen than for corporations,” said Lydia Usategui, 57, a psychiatrist from Miami.

Galdieri said there was a redemptive element to Santorum’s campaign. The social conservative lost his 2006 Senate re-election bid by a crushing margin.

“Instead of being the guy who lost by 18 points in his own state, he can be the guy who made a credible run,” Galdieri said.

Poor Rick Santorum… I mean that Literally

Newt Gingrich has the momentum.Mitt Romney has the money.

Rick Santorum? He has neither at the moment.

Not that he’s going to let details like that stop him from pressing ahead in his White House quest. Or, for that matter, hurdles like scant cash in an expensive state and a rapidly disappearing opportunity to emerge as the consensus candidate of conservative voters now that Gingrich has emerged as the leading anti-Romney candidate.

“Our feeling is that this is a three-person race,” Santorum insisted on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He added that he felt “absolutely no pressure at all” to abandon his bid given Gingrich’s rise.

Still, Santorum acknowledged a hard road ahead in what he called “a tough state for everybody.”

“It’s very, very expensive. It’s a very short time frame,” he said.

The former Pennsylvania senator placed third in Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

Gingrich scored his first win, entering the Florida campaign with the political winds pushing the former House speaker from behind. Romney, who has raised mounds of cash, came in second and was ready to regroup with sophisticated political machines in the upcoming states, Florida included.

Underscoring Santorum’s challenges, he was taking a few days away from the campaign trail in Florida this week to restock his thin campaign bank accounts. He plans fundraisers in other states, leaving Gingrich and Romney with free rein in Florida, while he stops in states such as Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Money is a necessity in a state like Florida with numerous expensive media markets and where campaigns are usually won on TV.

That’s not a natural fit for Santorum, who has run his campaign on a shoestring and won the Iowa caucuses — albeit narrowly — by spending more than a year making house calls to voters and traveling the state in a pickup truck.

To make up ground and perhaps earn some free media, Santorum is going on the attack.

Standing in a strip mall’s parking lot here Sunday before heading to fundraising events, Santorum cast Romney as an inconsistent figure who would not be an effective foil to President Barack Obama’s re-election bid and argued that Gingrich was too “high risk” to be the Republican standard-bearer.

“Trust is a big issue in this election,” Santorum told several hundred people. “Who are you going to trust when the pressure is on, when we’re in that debate? It’s great to be glib, but it’s better to be principled.”

He also met privately Sunday with pastors and delivered a sermon at Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, where he emphasized his conservatism. Santorum, who sprinkles his campaign speeches with his Catholic faith, is banking on evangelicals to coalesce around him over the thrice-married Gingrich or Romney, a Mormon.

“Can he win? Only God knows,” said David Babbin, a voter here who works at the nearby children’s hospital and likes Santorum. “But I believe in miracles.”

Still, he noted one of the candidate’s challenges: “Rick Santorum is one of us. And that’s his biggest flaw … We live in a society that is ‘American Idol’ and Rick Santorum is not like that.”

Santorum has other hurdles beyond what even admirers call his lack of charisma.

His tough talk on Social Security and Medicare — ending benefits for wealthier retirees, cutting payments to those who don’t need them — is going to dog him here in a state of 3.3 million seniors, or 17 percent of the population. AARP estimates that more than a third of those seniors would have incomes below the poverty line without Social Security and one in three seniors rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.

Santorum didn’t mention those proposals at his first public campaign event since the primary in South Carolina.

Gingrich Claims to be Best Contrast to Obama

Emboldened by his victory in South Carolina’s Republican primary, Newt Gingrich said Sunday his hardline conservative views and confrontational style will be needed by Republicans to fight President Barack Obama’s “billion-dollar war chest” and take back the White House.

In several televised interviews, the former speaker of the House of Representatives said rival Mitt Romney was a moderate who leftRepublican voters cold and that only he, Gingrich, could go “toe to toe” with Obama.

“I think in South Carolina it began to become really clear that if you want to beat Barack Obama, then Newt Gingrich is the only person who has the background, the experience and the ability to get on the stage and drive home a conservative message with authenticity,” he said.

Gingrich’s win in South Carolina has helped invigorate his once struggling campaign and cast fresh doubt on Romney’s ability to easily cinch the Republican nomination.

Returns from all the state’s precincts showed Gingrich with 40 percent of the vote to 28 percent for Romney. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 17 percent, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul 13 percent.

Next stop is Florida, where Gingrich and Romney will compete with Santorum in the Jan. 31 primary. Paul has said he was bypassing the state in favor of states like Maine, Minnesota, Nevada and Colorado with upcoming caucus contests where he stands a better chance of picking up delegates to the party’s national nominating convention.

Romney and his supporters are dismissing Gingrich’s win in South Carolina and say his nomination would be a disaster for the Republican Party, citing his rocky tenure leading House Republicans in the 1990s and allegations of ethics violations.

“I think Newt Gingrich has embarrassed the party, over time,” said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “Whether he will do it again in the future, I don’t know. But Gov. Romney never has.”

Gingrich says his views on lower taxes, less government regulation and foreign policy put him in stark contrast to Obama and that the dynamics of a Gingrich-Obama fight are much more alluring to voters.

“I think Gov. Romney’s core problem was that he governs (as) a Massachusetts moderate, which by the standards of Republican primary voters is a liberal. And he can’t relax and be candid,” he said.

Gingrich spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS “Face the Nation.” Christie spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”