WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum scored a major victory in America’s Deep South on Tuesday, winning two primaries in Alabama and Mississippi in a potentially dramatic shakeup of the party’s wildly unpredictable presidential race.
Santorum’s triumphs in Alabama and Mississippi denied front-runner Mitt Romney a huge night in the South, where polls had suggested he was in a strong position to take both primaries after vastly out-spending, yet again, his three rivals for the nomination.
Just a few hours earlier, Romney told CNN that Santorum was “at the desperate end” of his campaign. The Deep South primaries proved him wrong.
“For someone who thinks this race is inevitable, he’s spending a whole lot of money against me,” Santorum said in Louisiana, holding its own primary soon, after he won Alabama.
The state, with its large population of evangelical voters, certainly represented friendly ideological turf for Santorum. Eighty-four delegates were at stake in Alabama and Mississippi.
The win by Santorum bolsters two of his arguments: that Newt Gingrich should drop out of the race for president and free up his socially conservative backers, and that Romney can neither win the support of evangelicals nor get votes in a key region of the United States.
Gingrich insisted he was in the race to stay, however, reiterating his proclamation that he could crush U.S. President Barack Obama in a debate. He also focused some ire at Romney.
“If you’re the front-runner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a front-runner,” Gingrich said in Alabama.
Indeed, even before the results were known in Mississippi, a senior adviser for the Romney campaign was on CNN insisting the millionaire Mormon wasn’t expected to win either state and yet would still walk away with some of the contests’ delegates.
“Our goal was to come in, take a third of the delegates. We will do that,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, predicting there was little chance Santorum could catch up to Romney even with Alabama and Mississippi under his belt.
But despite Gingrich’s bluster, it was a disappointing night for the candidate who’d portrayed himself as a native son of the South given he served Georgia for two decades as a U.S. congressman. But with the Pennsylvania-born Gingrich failing to take either state, the calls for him to drop out were sure to intensify.
Nonetheless his chief of staff, Patrick Millsaps, told CNN even before the results were known that Gingrich would remain in the race. He noted the former speaker of the House of Representatives would pick up some delegates, and would move on to the next contests in Illinois and Louisiana.
The Southern showdown dawned as new polls suggest Obama’s approval ratings are plummeting as gas prices soar and tensions in the Middle East flare.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey found that 46 per cent approve of Obama’s job performance, while 50 per cent disapprove. A New York Times-CBS poll found 41 per cent approve while 47 per cent disapprove.
Polls in the South have suggested the region’s voters believe Romney has the best chance of beating Obama in November’s election. The former Massachusetts governor pointed to those surveys in recent days.
“The other guys are nice folks, but they have not organized a campaign with a staff, the organization, the fund-raising capacity to actually beat Barack Obama. I have,” he said.
Voters in Mississippi and Alabama headed to the polls after watching the party’s candidates contort themselves for weeks to prove they had uniquely southern sensibilities.
Romney swore he loved grits, a porridge-like southern culinary staple. Gingrich spoke of the importance of having a gun rack on the roof of his car. Santorum insisted only he truly shared the evangelical beliefs of southerners.
The southern contests took on a special significance as Romney continues to struggle to decisively win over the party’s stratified base of voters. Hawaii and American Samoa were also holding Republican caucuses on Tuesday.
But it was the results in the Deep South that could help redefine the race in the weeks to come. Santorum has already been pleading for Gingrich to drop out; he repeated it again earlier Tuesday.
“People of Mississippi and Alabama want a conservative,” Santorum told reporters in Biloxi, Miss. “If they want a conservative nominee for sure, they can do that by lining up behind us and making this race clearly a two-person race outside of the South.”
A tally by The Associated Press shows Romney with 454 of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination, Santorum with 217, Gingrich with 107 and Ron Paul with 47. The more delegates amassed by Romney, the more daunting the task for the three other candidates to catch up, meaning he’s likely on pace to secure the nomination before the party’s convention in August.
Attempts over the past few weeks by Gingrich and Romney, in particular, to appeal to southern voters were comical at times.
Romney, the buttoned-down Harvard grad whose wife is a dressage enthusiast, took to using the term “y’all” when greeting crowds. He spoke of his penchant for “cheesy grits.” And he brought comedian Jeff Foxworthy on stage to endorse him; Foxworthy’s trademark comedy routine begins: “You might be a redneck if. ...”
Two weeks ago, Romney found himself in hot water for boasting of being pals with people who own NASCAR teams; NASCAR racing is hugely popular in the South.
But the former Massachusetts governor also poked fun at himself and his ignorance of the past-times many southerners hold dear, mentioning he hoped to go hunting with a friend from Alabama who “can actually show me which end of the rifle to point.” He got big laughs.
Gingrich, meantime — the man who’s compared himself to Charles DeGaulle and has lived in the posh D.C.-area enclave of McLean, Va. for years — donned a bass-fishing shirt at a recent event and punctuated his normally professorial remarks with a few “ain’ts.”
“What a crowd; I am really impressed,” Gingrich added in Dothan, Alabama. “There must be nobody left at Walmart this afternoon.”
The Walmart quip is a common expression in the South to suggest something big is happening elsewhere.
In an earlier speech in the South, Gingrich mocked Chevrolet’s electric car, calling the Volt “an Obama car” and saying you couldn’t strap a gun rack on its roof. Chevy corrected him.
Libertarian congressman Ron Paul, meantime, has argued that slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War in an online video apparently aimed at appealing to southerners.
And Santorum was heard droppin’ his G’s as he was addressin’ his cheerin’ supporters.
“Goldarnit, it’s National Talk Lack a Southerner Day,” wrote Linton Weeks on the North Country Public Radio website of the candidates’ attempts to ingratiate themselves to southerners.