Campaign heats up in South Carolina
In TV interviews and ads, GOP rivals Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney intensify the attacks,
Republican front-runner Mitt Romney warned rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry on Wednesday that their attacks on his business record “fell flat” in the New Hampshire primary, a contest the former Massachusetts governor won handily, but both competitors vowed to intensify the onslaught in the South Carolina campaign ahead.
The candidates’ exchanges, done via campaign speech and TV interview, set the stage for a rough-and-tumble battle over the next 10 days, fueled by millions of dollars in negative ads and an assessment that Romney could effectively wrap up the party’s presidential nomination if he scores a third win in a row.
“South Carolina either finish- es the race or whittles it down to a two-man race,” Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., predicted in an interview with USA TODAY. Mulvaney, who has endorsed Perry, acknowledged that the Texas governor would need a strong showing in the primary to keep his campaign afloat.
In a series of interviews on morning TV shows, Romney expressed delight in his victory and disdain toward the attacks being mounted against him. “I think the evidence from New Hampshire last night, where both the speaker and Rick Perry were both in single digits, suggest this kind of attack on free enterprise is simply not gaining traction for them,” he said on Fox & Friends.
Undeterred, Gingrich linked Romney’s record at the private equity firm Bain Capital with Wall Street misdeeds that contributed to the nation’s economic crisis. “We have a right to know what happened at Goldman Sachs, what happened with trillions of dollars in New York,” the former House speaker said in Rock Hill, S.C. “We have a right to know what happened when companies go bankrupt.”
He rejected complaints by some Republican leaders that the attacks represented criticism of the free-enterprise system and could weaken the party’s most likely nominee. “I am prepared to stand up to every level of pressure,” he said.
Perry, the Texas governor, also was defiant. “I am as much of a capitalist and have a record to prove it . . . by helping create over a million jobs in the state of Texas,” he said in an interview on Fox from South Carolina. “But there’s a real difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism, and that’s what we’re talking about here.”
He demanded that Romney explain and defend Bain Capital’s role in the takeover of a company in Gaffney, S.C., which then laid off 150 workers.
The Romney campaign announced it had raised $24 million from October through the end of the year and had $19 million in the bank, a war chest big enough to air ads not only in South Carolina but also in Florida. The South Carolina primary is on Jan. 21; the Florida primary follows on Jan. 31.
Gingrich acknowledged that South Carolina might be the last chance to deny Romney the nomination. “If Romney can win in South Carolina, he’s probably going to be the nominee,” Gingrich said on MSNBC. “He has so much money. If he also has the momentum, it’s going to be very hard to stop him.”