THE RACE for the Republican presidential nomination was overturned yet again on Tuesday night, when the religious conservative Rick Santorum scored twin victories in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, confirming his status as the only serious challenger to Mitt Romney.
Newt Gingrich calls himself a southerner and had expected to win at least Alabama, adjacent to his home state of Georgia. His spokesman said Gingrich needed to win both states to remain credible. In the event, Gingrich placed second, Romney a close third. The former speaker of the House is under increasing pressure to drop out of the race.
Santorum’s win strengthened his chances of depriving Romney of the 1,144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination by the end of the primaries in June. Both Santorum and Gingrich want to see a brokered convention in Tampa from August 27th to 30th, tearing the party apart two months before the November 6th election.
Romney had faint hopes of confounding the assumption that he cannot rally the Tea Party, evangelical Christian and blue-collar base by winning the Deep South. In the wake of Tuesday night’s losses, the Romney campaign admitted it would take at least two more months to resolve the contest.
IN HIS VICTORY speech, Santorum spoke of God, prayer, family, being the underdog and uniting conservatives. Gingrich attacked Romney and “the elite media”, and boasted that he had “set the national dialogue” by making an issue of petrol prices.
Romney did not hold an election-night party or speak to his supporters, but issued written statements from on high – his campaign headquarters in Boston.
“We did it again,” a visibly surprised and euphoric Santorum said in a hotel ballroom in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he was already campaigning for that state’s March 24th primary. Santorum has now won 10 states to Romney’s 18 and Gingrich’s two.
Before Santorum took to the stage, a supporter asked the crowd to “take a knee” to pray for victory. Santorum began by saying that “the most common thing I hear from people . . . is ‘I’m praying for you’”.
In exit polls in Mississippi, 81 per cent of voters described themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians; 75 per cent in Alabama, making the Bible Belt states the most fundamentalist in the country. In both states, a plurality of evangelicals voted for Santorum, who is Catholic.
A colour-coded map on Fox News drove home that Santorum has won only conservative, deeply inland states, while Romney has won those on the geographical periphery, which tend to be more moderate.
With the exception of upcoming votes in Missouri and Louisiana, where Santorum is expected to do well, the worst may be over for Romney, as the process moves away from the Deep South and midwest. Romney leads opinion polls in Illinois, where the next important primary will be held on March 20th.
SANTORUM SAID his victory proved Romney was not the “inevitable” nominee: “People have said, you know, you’re being outspent, and everybody’s talking about all the math and that this race is inevitable. But . . . he spent a whole lot of money against me for being inevitable.”
According to Kantar Media, which tracks advertising, the Romney campaign paid for 64 per cent of the 7,138 advertisements broadcast in Alabama and Mississippi in the past month. Gingrich’s campaign paid for 21 per cent; Santorum’s 15 per cent.
As Santorum noted, not a single opinion poll predicted his win in Mississippi. “This is a grass-roots campaign for president,” he said, calling himself the grandson of a coal miner.
“Who would have ever thought . . . that ordinary folks from across this country could defy the odds, day in and day out?”
WHEN SANTORUM said the campaign was about “the integrity of family and the centrality of faith in our lives”, the crowd applauded and cheered wildly.
Earlier in the day, Santorum told radio host Glenn Beck that “it would be great if [Gingrich] would get out of the race” because “clearly the vast majority of the votes that he is taking are coming from me”.
By splitting the conservative vote, “right now, Gingrich couldn’t be doing more to help Mitt Romney if he was a paid campaign worker for Mitt Romney”, Richard Land, an official with the Southern Baptist Convention, told Bloomberg News. “He should have dropped out a good while ago.”
Even if Gingrich stays in the race, as he has vowed to do, he may be marginalised because conservative voters will believe Santorum has a better chance of beating Romney.
GINGRICH, LIKE Santorum, emphasised the collapse of the “inevitability” argument. “If you are the front runner and keep coming in third, you are not much of a front runner,” he said, referring to Romney, although it was an ill-chosen jibe, since Gingrich is in third place overall.
Gingrich’s lectern was adorned with a fluorescent drawing of a petrol pump.
“I will always remember campaigning in Mississippi and Alabama because it was here in the last week that the issue of gasoline and energy was crystalised,” he said.
“We are already impacting the national debate on a scale that all Romney’s ad money hasn’t achieved.”
In his written statement, Romney congratulated Santorum but noted that “with the delegates won tonight, we are even closer to the nomination”.
Early yesterday, it was announced that Romney had won at least 18 delegates by taking Hawaii and Samoa.
DELEGATES IN the close Alabama and Mississippi races are awarded proportionally. Romney ended up winning at least 40 delegates on Tuesday night; Santorum at least 34; and Gingrich at least 24. According to the Associated Press, Romney now has an estimated 494 delegates, Santorum 251, Gingrich 131 and Ron Paul 48.
“Like sterile accountants counting pennies, the Romney camp keeps counting delegates,” says conservative blogger Erick Erickson.
“That can get them to a win, but it will be an uninspiring win.”
