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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jules Witcover
Rick Santorum's exit from the fight for the Republican presidential nomination was a belated recognition that he was outgunned by Mitt Romney's huge financial advantage. But the damage Santorum inflicted on the GOP brand in the process leaves Romney leading a divided party in which he remains an uncomfortable fit.
The man who has oddly described himself to be "severely conservative" stands on the brink of nomination despite the party base's general coolness toward him and despite the divisions in its ranks that frustrated his efforts to nail down the nomination for so long.
Santorum's candidacy, and to a lesser degree that of Newt Gingrich, provided resistant voters ready escape from the well-oiled Romney steamroller throughout several months of intensive campaigning and a television advertising blitzkrieg.
This resistance to Romney resulted not simply from the bland candidate's failure to light a fire in Republican and independent hearts. It came also from strong doubts about his reliability on the litmus-test social issues that animate the tea party and evangelical groups now holding the whole
The challenge for Romney now is whether he can pivot to more centrist positions to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents without feeding further resistance from all those voters who took refuge or were true believers in the Santorum and Gingrich candidacies.
However, the bitter and mean-spirited charges that were exchanged among the leading
Through it all there were only a few unifying elements that offered the basis for post-nomination Republican unity. They were the goals of ousting Barack Obama from the presidency, repealing his health care law, and speeding the recovery of an economy many insist remains in recession.
The first of these remains the best potential rallying point for Romney once he becomes the Republican nominee, as now seems certain. No matter what happens between now and November, including the impending
Whatever the
As for the economy, with the important exception of the continuing rise in gas prices at the pump, public laments about the economy appear to be softening somewhat in light of employment gains in the auto industry and selected other manufacturing occupations.
As strong as the animosity toward Obama may remain in the core of the
There was a time not too long ago when the
But today's
AMERICAN POLITICS
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Damage to the Republican Brand | Politics
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