Romney’s Long, Ugly Slog

Mitt Romney has been weakened since South Carolina, but he hasn’t yet thrown in the towel. The Republican is pumping millions more into his campaign machine and sharpening the attacks against his rivals. America’s conservatives are predicting a marathon race.

Seldom had anyone seen 64 year old multimillionaire Mitt Romney looking as pale as he is tonight. Dark circles beneath his eyes revealed the toll that his fight for the presidential nomination has exacted. But the fight, it seems, is just beginning. “We’ve still got a long way to go and a lot of work to do,” Romney told his disappointed supporters in South Carolina. The next primary will be held in 10 days. He has to continue, so he cheers everyone on to Florida.

Romney, the Republican establishment’s fair-haired boy, has taken a body blow, but he’s by no means down for the count. He remains the favorite in the race for the nomination. In Florida, the first major state on the primary calendar, he’s the clear number one among Republicans. Romney, a perfectionist obsessed by details, has built a powerful campaign machine in Florida with many helpers and outstanding logistics.

And he has money. A lot of money. His campaign has already spent at least $4 million on television spots, and that was just the beginning. By voting time on Tuesday of next week, Romney’s campaign, assisted by wealthy friends supporting him via super PACs, will have flooded the expensive media outlets in Orlando, Tampa and Miami with anti-Gingrich video spots.

The lesson learned by the Romney campaign in South Carolina was that the ex-governor of Massachusetts was overcautious in the fight. Now Romney is reacting. Before election night was over, he had launched a counterattack on his opponent. He accused Gingrich of resorting to the the same weapons liberals use by bringing up his record as CEO of Bain Capital Management, calling such attacks on the free enterprise system un-American. “They’re attacking everyone who dreams of a better future,” he thundered. Such rhetoric resonates with Republicans, and the crowd cheered.

America’s conservatives now expect a marathon similar to the one the Democrats went through four years ago. In 2008, the duel between party favorite Hillary Clinton and rising star Barack Obama lasted until June.

And the Republicans have gotten more Democratic, as least as far as their internal organization is concerned. Until the beginning of April, the state delegates going to the Republican convention — the actual object of every primary — will be apportioned based on their actual vote tallies and not by a winner-take-all scenario as was the case previously.

That means a long, drawn-out race. Even after so-called “Super Tuesday,” when Republicans vote simultaneously in a dozen states, three-fifths of all delegates will still remain uncommitted.

South Carolina damaged Romney’s status as the “unavoidable candidate.” Gingrich carried nearly every voter group in the state, but he is weakened as long as ex-Senator Rick Santorum remains in the race, courting party conservatives. Romney knows his own weak points, such as often appearing lifeless in the televised debates.

His supporters hope that a protracted primary race will strengthen their man as the Democratic primary in 2008 strengthened Obama. The president has often admitted that his duel against Hillary Clinton made him a better candidate.