Washingtonpost news updates: Romneys

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

It’s Mitt Romney’s race to lose ... again

???initialComments:true! pubdate:01/27/2012 13:42 EST! commentPeriod:14! commentEndDate:2/10/12 1:42 EST! currentDate:1/27/12 1:0 EST! allowComments:true! displayComments:true!Posted by Aaron Blake at 01:42 PM ET, 01/27/2012

A lot can happen in four days, but as of today, the Florida primary and the GOP presidential race are again Mitt Romney’s to lose.

After a brief diversion in the South Carolina primary, Romney is once again the clear favorite in Florida, having taken a 9-point lead in the latest Florida poll. And if he wins there, it’s hard to see where he might slip up again.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has taken a lead in the Florida primary. And if he wins, it may be the end for his opponents. (AP Photo)

Nevada’s caucuses are the next contest, held Feb. 4, and Romney won that state by nearly 40 points in 2008. He’s also already up with an ad in the Silver State – further reinforcing that his campaign is just head-and-shoulders above its competitors, both financially and organizationally.

Assuming Romney wins Florida and follows it up by coasting in Nevada, all that’s left before Super Tuesday are a few lower-profile caucuses in early February and the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 28.

Arizona, like Nevada, has a fair-sized Mormon population and should be a good state for Romney; he lost it by just 12 points in 2008 to home-state senator John McCain and held McCain under 50 percent — a strong showing for Romney given the circumstances. And, of course, Romney has strong ties to Michigan, given that his father was governor of the state.

Early polling has shown Romney leading in both Arizona and Michigan.

In other words, there are scant few opportunities for anyone to gain momentum between Florida and Super Tuesday on March 6, and lots of time for whoever might still be in the race to have to keep the pirate ship afloat.

What’s more, a candidate needs lots of money to really compete on Super Tuesday, and while Arizona and Michigan will be big contests and could provide a bump, there’s only a week between them and Super Tuesday — not exactly a lot of time to raise money.

Given the financial problems experienced by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, keeping a campaign alive in the five weeks between Tuesday and Super Tuesday is a daunting task without another victory or game-changing event.

Gingrich, of course, has Sheldon Adelson bankrolling his super PAC to the tune of $10 million, but how much will Adelson be willing to chip in if it’s looking like a lost cause? He’s a billionaire, but even billionaires hate to throw good money after bad.

To the line…

4. Ron Paul: The Texas congressman is relegated to this position mostly because he hasn’t put forth any real effort in Florida. Instead, he’s using a more thrifty, delegate-focused strategy keying on the caucus states early next month. A super PAC supporting his campaign has run some ads here, but mostly Paul is skipping the state. Also, given that it’s a closed primary (i.e. independents can’t vote), Paul’s share of the vote will suffer.

3. Rick Santorum: Santorum passed Paul at Thursday’s debate, turning in one of his strongest performances of the presidential race and making his case for becoming the anti-Romney candidate in the field. If Gingrich falls further, Santorum is really the only alternative for conservative voters, who will either have to move to him or embrace Romney. Still, Santorum hasn’t shown much in the way of momentum, even following his after-the-fact win in Iowa. And Florida isn’t yet looking like it will give him much of a bump.

2. Newt Gingrich: The rollercoaster ride that is the Newt Gingrich presidential campaign appears to be on the downslope right now. Gingrich essentially won in South Carolina thanks to his debate performances, but the Gingrich we saw at the two debates in Florida this week was virtually unrecognizable. And today’s Quinnipiac University poll of the state’s primary confirms what we had suspected; he hasn’t been able to sustain the bump he got from South Carolina.

1. Mitt Romney: The frontrunner is the frontrunner again. Romney had some of his best moments of the presidential race early in Thursday’s debate, and even before that, he had reclaimed the lead in Florida. The question now is whether there is anything left to trip him up. He has withstood the Bain Capital situation, gotten past the mistake of not releasing his tax returns, and the attacks on his health care bill and moderate past are old hat at this point. The question is what else is there? If nothing recasts this race in a significant way over the next four days – and there are no more debates until late February – Romney should win.

Jerry Markon; Alice Crites

::unspecified::

Glenn Kessler

Al Kamen

Carol D. Leonnig

David Nakamura

Ed O'keefe

Dan Balz; Amy Gardner

Glenn Kessler

Scott Clement

Amy Gardner; Rosalind S. Helderman

Ed O'keefe

Krissah Thompson

Dan Eggen

Glenn Kessler

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Friday, February 24, 2012

Gingrich mocks Romney’s ‘self-deportation’ plan for illegal immigrants

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View Photo Gallery — Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has emerged as a front-runner in the GOP presidential race after winning the South Carolina primary.

Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By Amy Gardner and Rosalind S. Helderman,

MIAMI — Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday mocked as an “Obama-level fantasy” Mitt Romney’s plan to deal with illegal immigration by encouraging “self-deportation.”

Gingrich made the comment as he began a day of outreach to Florida’s Hispanic voters with an extensive interview on Spanish-language television and a speech at Florida International University in which he called for a more a forceful U.S. role in ending communist rule in Cuba, as well as an overhaul of U.S. economic policies toward all of Latin America.

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New ad in Florida from Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting former House speaker Newt Gingrich, attacks former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

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GOP METER: A look at how the 2012 Republican candidates for president differ on key issues.

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Romney blasts Obama’s speechGingrich mocks Romney on ‘self-deportation’Obama heads to heartland with economic proposalsLiberal groups join Fla. ad war on Romney

In an interview with the Univision network, Gingrich said it was unrealistic for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States to voluntarily leave the country, as Romney, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested in a debate Monday ahead of Florida’s Jan. 31 primary. Gingrich, who upset the GOP race by decisively winning Saturday’s South Carolina primary, also used a question about the immigration issue to get in a few digs at the former Massachusetts governor over his wealth and tax returns.

“You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million income for no work to have some fantasy this far from reality,” Gingrich told Univision interviewer Jorge Ramos. “For Romney to believe that somebody’s grandmother is going to be so cut off that she is going to self-deport, I mean this is an Obama-level fantasy.”

In a debate Monday, a moderator asked Romney how he would get illegal immigrants to go home without rounding up and deporting them, which he has said he does not want to do.

“Well, the answer is self-deportation,” he responded. He said this would happen when “people decide that they could do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.”

After Gingrich ridiculed the idea Wednesday, Romney’s campaign highlighted previous comments by Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, who said the vast majority of illegal immigrants would likely “self-deport” under Gringrich’s immigration plan, which Hammond said would allow only a small percentage of them to remain in the United States.

Romney is slated to appear Wednesday afternoon at the same Univision candidate forum where Gingrich spoke in the morning. Later, Romney was scheduled to address the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC in Miami. Earlier, he offered a scathing review of President Obama’s State of the Union address in a speech at a factory in Tampa.

On the campaign trail in Florida, Gingrich and Romney sought to appeal to Latinos — a difficult task nationwide for GOP candidates. According to a new ABC News/Univision poll, Latino voters favor Obama over all the Republican hopefuls by a wide margin.

In Florida, Latinos prefer Obama over Romney 50 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical head-to-head general election contest, according to the poll. In a matchup against Gingrich, the poll shows the margin to be even wider, with 52 percent supporting the president to 38 percent for the former speaker.

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