ROMNEY POISED TO WIN PRIMARY AMID ATTACKS
CONCORD, New Hampshire: Republican White House hopefuls, led by frontrunner Mitt Romney, face voters in the US state of New Hampshire on Tuesday in a bellwether primary all but certain to tighten his hold on the nomination.
Analysts are eager to see how well the former governor of Massachusetts state and millionaire venture capitalist does compared to polls that have given him a commanding lead all year—and to see who comes in second.
Romney hopes that a romp—after a squeaker win in Iowa state— will propel him into South Carolina state’s January 21 primary—the first in the South, where his more conservative rivals could get their best shot at a victory.
By tradition, the first ballots were cast shortly after midnight in two tiny New Hampshire towns with a combined turnout of 32 voters.
In Dixville Notch (population: 75), Romney tied former US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman with two votes each out of nine cast. In Hart’s Location ( population: 42) Romney was the Republican frontrunner with five votes.
Overall, New Hampshire officials expect some 325,000 voters to head to the polls, most of them Republicans because Democratic President Barack Obama is running unopposed for his party’s nomination ahead of the November 6 elections.
The Republican primary is closed to Democrats but open to Republicans and to the state’s undeclared voters—its term for registered independents who are notoriously unpredictable and can be late to make up their minds.
The candidates themselves were expected to make made-for-television public appearances— telephoning undecided voters, exhorting volunteers to get their supporters to the polls—before settling in to await the verdict.
A daily tracking poll released on Monday by Suffolk University in nearby Boston, Massachusetts, found Romney leading the pack with 33 percent of likely voters, followed by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas state at 20 percent.
Huntsman was at 13 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 11, and Christian conservative and former Sen. Rick Santorum at 10 percent, following his extremely close second- place finish in last week’s Iowa vote.
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former Gov. Buddy Roemer of Louisiana state trailed the pack with low single digits.
Persistent doubts
A vast campaign war chest and highprofile endorsements have fed Romney’s image as the man to beat, but he faces persistent doubts about his conservative credentials and has been unable to push his nationwide Republican support above 30 percent.
South Carolina is the first contest for the Republican nomination in the US South, where Romney faces pushback from conservatives who think he is a moderate flip-flopper and from evangelical Christians wary of his Mormon faith.
But Romney faced a blistering attack of a different sort in the days before the New Hampshire primary, as Gingrich, Perry and Huntsman assailed him over jobs lost at companies bought by his prosperous venture capital firm, Bain.
Gingrich, who was trailing in the polls after a blitz on his own record by Romney allies, led the charge against his rival over his time at Bain, which dismantled some of the firms it bought while reaping huge profits.
“They apparently looted the com- panies, left people totally unemployed, and walked off with millions of dollars,” Gingrich told the National Broadcasting Co. television network.
“Look, I’m for capitalism,” he said. “But if somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company, and then leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that’s not traditional capitalism.”
Romney struck back, telling the Nashua Chamber of Commerce, “I have been in business. I have learned [that] some things fail and some things succeed. That’s how it works . . . Those that succeed make our overall nation stronger.”
“Our system works. Free enterprise works,” said the frontrunner, who touts his leadership of the private equity firm as his signal qualification to take on Obama.