CONSERVATIVES IN the US Republican Party are showing new signs of fracturing despite a vote over the weekend by religious leaders to coalesce behind presidential hopeful Rick Santorum as an anti-Mitt Romney alternative.
When Jon Huntsman – the moderate former governor of Utah whose candidacy did not live up to its early promise – dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr Romney, he said: “It is now time for our party to unite around the candidate best equipped to defeat Barack Obama . . . Despite our differences and the space between us on some of the issues, I believe that candidate is governor Mitt Romney.”
But his call for unity came as evangelical leaders, intent on blocking Mr Romney’s path to the nomination, showed new divisions after having appeared on Saturday to settle on Mr Santorum as their conservative choice. Four conservative Christian leaders who attended a meeting of evangelicals in Texas asserted their independence on Monday, issuing a statement that noted: “Many there were and still are for Newt Gingrich.”
Underscoring the party’s lack of unity, Mr Santorum’s campaign released its first negative advertisement against Mr Romney hours before the candidates gathered here for a debate. The ad called Mr Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, “more liberal than Ted Kennedy on social issues” and said he had inspired President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, meaning he would be unable to present a sharp contrast with Mr Obama.
The ad highlighted how the battle for South Carolina’s evangelical and conservative voters – who make up 60 per cent of the state’s registered Republicans – has boiled down to a two-man contest between Mr Santorum and Mr Gingrich. Neither candidate showed any sign that he was considering stepping aside.
As Mr Santorum was trying to build momentum from Saturday’s vote by religious leaders, the Gingrich camp sought to burst that bubble, saying that the Santorum team had misrepresented the scope of the evangelicals’ support and that it would not matter anyway.
Mr Gingrich told voters at a stop here: “People have to decide. If you vote for Senator Santorum, in effect you’re functionally voting for Governor Romney, because he’s not going to beat him. The only way to stop Governor Romney . . . is to vote for Newt Gingrich. That’s a mathematical fact.”
But Santorum supporters said the evangelicals’ decision would upend the race.
“This was a total game-changer,” said Bill Wichterman, a senior adviser to the Santorum campaign. “When you’re looking at trajectories, there’s been a rapid loss of conservative support” for Gingrich, said Mr Wichterman “and a transitioning to Santorum . . . that’s what happened”.
The squabbling on the conservative end left Mr Romney as a potential unintended beneficiary, as his opposition remains fractured and he tries to pull off a third straight victory in a nominating contest with Saturday’s primary vote here.
Still to be determined is whether Mr Huntsman’s endorsement would help Mr Romney, who was leading in most polls here.
Mr Huntsman said Republicans must now focus on defeating Mr Obama in November, which is why they needed to join in supporting Mr Romney as their nominee. But with many voters still undecided or concerned about Mr Romney’s conservative credentials, the endorsement may sway few people.
As the campaigning in South Carolina intensifies, the Santorum team is stepping up efforts to corral social conservatives into its fold. It intends to roll out more endorsements from individual evangelical and conservative leaders in the coming days.
“In the next day or so, several groups will be contacting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people by email and robocalls, encouraging them to support Santorum,” said Colin Hannah, the president of the conservative advocacy group Let Freedom Ring, who attended the Texas meeting.
“I think we’re going to see a substantial response,” he said.
In a conference call late on Monday afternoon with about 30 of the evangelical leaders who had attended the Texas meeting, Mr Santorum discussed the nuts and bolts of how they would organise their support for him.
Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have invested considerable time and money here and see South Carolina as their firewall. Whoever does worse on Saturday will face renewed pressure to drop out, but both men were already laying the groundwork for the next contest, in Florida on January 31st.
The impact of the evangelicals’ vote for Mr Santorum was already being felt. John Stemberger, president of Florida Family Action, which has helped lead efforts against same-sex marriage, became one of the first evangelical leaders to announce on Monday that the Texas meeting had changed his mind. He had been co-chairman of Florida campaign for Perry of Texas going into the meeting, but by the final ballot he supported Santorum.
Mr Stemberger said he believed that Perry was “not resonating”.
– ( New York Timesservice)