Mitt Romney hoping for big delegate haul on so-called Super Tuesday

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney was looking to clear a significant hurdle in his dash to secure the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday while his No. 1 foe, Rick Santorum, hoped to stay in the marathon during the single biggest day of the Republican presidential race.

Primary voters in 10 states headed to the polls on so-called Super Tuesday, a day that could finally give Romney's campaign some grand-scale victories and along with them, a long sought-after air of inevitability.

Among the states holding contests are the delegate-rich crown jewels of Ohio and Georgia.

The well-heeled Romney, who trailed Santorum in blue-collar Ohio for most of February, was in a dead heat with the former Pennsylvania senator in most polls in the Rust Belt state as Super Tuesday dawned.

Newt Gingrich, meantime, whose campaign has sputtered since he trounced Romney in South Carolina in January, was expected to win handily in Georgia. The former speaker of the House of Representatives served the state for two decades as a U.S. congressman.

Failure in the state, Gingrich has said, would all but spell the end of his bid for the nomination.

With more than 400 delegates at stake in the 10 states, Super Tuesday represents a significant chunk of the 1,144 needed to secure the nomination.

In addition to Georgia and Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Vermont, Massachusetts, Idaho, North Dakota and Alaska were also holding nominating contests.

Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, is expected to coast to victory in Vermont, Massachusetts and Virginia. Neither Gingrich nor Santorum made the ballot in Virginia, limiting the opportunities for either man to gain ground on the front-runner.

Besides Ohio, Santorum was polling well in Oklahoma and Tennessee, where Christian evangelicals in those states like his stances on hot-button social issues. Even so, Romney and Gingrich were gaining on him in recent days in Tennessee.

Libertarian congressman Ron Paul, meantime, was making a serious bid for Idaho, a state with a long history of libertarianism. Even Mitt Romney's second cousin, Chad Romney, said this week he was casting his ballot for Paul.

Romney headed into Super Tuesday with momentum after eking out a victory over Santorum last week in Michigan, the state where the Mormon millionaire was born and raised. He also easily won Arizona's winner-takes-all contest, and was victorious in Saturday's caucuses in Washington state too.

On the campaign trail on Tuesday, Romney kept a disdainful focus on U.S. President Barack Obama, penning an editorial in the Washington Post that portrayed him as weak on foreign policy before assailing him again to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"The president speaks of common interests. Let me be very clear about this: We do not have common interests with a terrorist regime," Romney said to applause.

"It is profoundly irrational to suggest that the ayatollahs think the way we do or share our values. They do not."

Santorum addressed the conference too, saying Iran has no reason to take the U.S. seriously when Obama talks of waiting for sanctions to work.

"From everything I've seen from the conduct of this administration, he has turned his back on the people of Israel," he said.

Republicans have been trying to woo Jewish voters, who cast their ballots overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, by accusing him of being weak on Iran.

At a rare news conference at the White House later in the day, Obama fired back.

"Those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities," Obama said, adding their actual policies on what to do about Iran were strikingly similar to his own.

"If some of these folks think that it's time to launch a war they should say so, and they should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be. Everything else is just talk."

When asked what he had to say to Romney in the wake of his attacks, Obama replied to laughter from the White House press corps: "Good luck tonight. Really."

Supporters of the various candidates have been going to bat for their men in the days heading into Super Tuesday.

"The party is starting to understand the need to coalesce behind somebody, that what does unite us is beating Barack Obama," Romney backer Jason Chaffetz, a Utah congressman, said on CNN.

"Mitt Romney has by far the best chance of beating Barack Obama in November, and we've got to get united in that sooner rather than later."

Santorum's wife, Karen, meantime, described her husband as a good father and a strong supporter of women in an apparent attempt to undo some of the damage done to his campaign by his controversial stances on birth control, abortion and working women.

The media and his critics have attempted to make Santorum look like a one-dimensional politician whose only concern is social issues, she said in a pre-taped interview with CBS.

"They try to corner him and make it look like he doesn't know anything else. As a wife, mother, an educated woman, it frustrates me that they try to do that," she said.

"My husband is brilliant, he knows so much about ... national security, jobs, the economy. You know, every aspect of this race, any issue out there, he's brilliant."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mitt-romney-hoping-big-delegate-haul-called-super-221437101.html

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