Bachmann off, Perry on Republican rollercoaster

Mitt Romney

DES MOINES, Iowa/MANCHESTER, N.H., (Reuters) –   Michele Bachmann was out, Rick Perry was back and Rick  Santorum was up in the most volatile Republican presidential  nominating contest in decades yesterday, as conservative  Republicans searched for an alternative to frontrunner Mitt  Romney.

Mitt Romney

Bachmann, a U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota, stepped down  after a dismal sixth place finish in the first Republican  nominating contest in Iowa, which was decided by a margin of 8  votes out of the 122,000 cast. Perry, the governor of Texas,  stayed in the race despite earlier hinting he would drop out.

Frustrated at conservatives’ failure to unite behind a  single candidate, Christian conservative leaders planned a Texas  meeting this weekend to thrash out strategy.

Their candidate may turn out to be Santorum, a former U.S.  senator from Pennsylvania, who came in a close second to Romney  in Tuesday’s Republican Iowa vote, which kicked off the 2012  presidential election cycle.

“Our country needed someone to step forward who had a little  different perspective on what this country needs than the other  Republican candidates who were going to be in the race. It was a  gratifying moment that the people of Iowa recognized that,” he  told CNN.

A CNN poll yesterday showed Santorum doubling his level  of support to 10 percent in New Hampshire, although he remained  far behind Romney, who was the governor of the neighboring state  of Massachusetts.

Distrusted by conservatives, Romney has struggled to break  above the 25-percent level in national polls of Republicans in  the race to choose a challenger to President Barack Obama for  November’s presidential election.

He has a solid campaign infrastructure and is favored to  easily win the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Romney picked up  the endorsement of Senator John McCain, who was the party’s  nominee in 2008.

“I’m really here for one reason and one reason only, and  that is that we make Mitt Romney the next president of the  United States of America,” McCain said at a rally in Manchester,  New Hampshire. “And New Hampshire is the state that will  catapult him on to victory in a very short period of time.”

SANTORUM PROBLEMS

An afterthought in the race until now, Santorum could have  difficulty scaling up his campaign to compete in other states.  On Wednesday, his Web site apparently crashed under a deluge of  traffic.

Santorum has escaped close scrutiny so far, but rivals have  plenty to work with if they want to attack him as a Washington  insider in a year in which anti-government anger runs high. As a  congressional leader, Santorum led an effort to link Republicans  closely with lobbying interests before voters threw him out of  office by an 18-point margin in 2006.

His career out of public office could come under attack as  well: his million-dollar-plus income in 2010 included  substantial payments from a lobbying firm and a hospital group  that was hit with two lawsuits for allegedly defrauding the  federal government.

Conservative voters have boosted nearly every other  candidate in the race to the top of opinion polls over the past  six months.

Another hopeful who has seen his support crumble, Perry  decided to stay in the race after earlier saying he would  reassess his campaign after a fifth-place finish in Iowa.

“We are going to go into places where they have actual  primaries and there are going to be real Republicans voting,”  Perry told reporters, referring to New Hampshire and South  Carolina.
The unsettled nomination race – which pollster Gallup said  was the most topsy-turvy in 50 years – also leaves an opening  for former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich or  Perry if Romney can’t connect with more voters.

South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary is shaping up to be a  crucial test.

“Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks campaigns’ pockets and  South Carolina picks Republican presidents, and it is far from  settled in South Carolina,” former state Republican Party  chairman Katon Dawson, a Perry supporter, told Reuters.

Perry, a steady leader in the money stakes, has $3-4 million  on hand to fund a multi-state campaign, according to a  knowledgable source.

Gingrich, who led opinion polls in December on the strength  of his television debate performances, can look forward to  debates on Saturday and Sunday in New Hampshire as he tries to  return to the top tier.

At the end of September, Romney’s campaign had $14.7 million  cash on hand while Santorum’s had $189,556, according to the  candidates’ Federal Election Commission filings.