SUPER TUESDAY GIVES ROMNEY MOMENTUM
The day after Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney’s campaign says he’s the only candidate who will be left standing. Others say he still hasn’t exactly clinched the Republican nomination. But at this rate, his rivals have a lot of catching up to do, before the national convention, in August. Mitt Romney is clearly on top but both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich hope to capitalize on Romney’s vulnerability, with the party’s most conservative.
Local Republicans are responding to the race so far and sharing whether or not they think California can affect the outcome. Romney won six of ten states, earning 40-percent of the delegates. Now he has twice as many delegates as either of his main rivals.
Romney says, “We’re doing some counting, we’re counting up the delegates for the convention and it looks good and we’re counting down the days until November and that looks even better.”
The bad news for Romney, he didn’t completely knock out the competition.
Newt Gingrich says, “We are staying in this race because I believe that it’s gonna be impossible for a moderate to win the general election.”
We spoke to the President of the Lincoln Club, a Republican organization, here in the Coachella Valley, for her take on Super Tuesday. Nancy De Luna says, “I was very pleased. It was not the type of response you do flip-flops over or do jumping jacks, because it was not overwhelming.”
Romney apparently won in Ohio, barely holding off Rick Santorum despite heavily out- spending him. The former Pennsylvania Senator looks to do well in the upcoming contests in conservative Kansas, Alabama and Mississippi. For now, he seems happy with how his campaign is doing. Santorum says, “We are going to lose a few, and win a few. But as it looks right now, we are going to get at least a few gold medals and a whole lot of silver medals.”
But local Republicans say it’s going to be tough gain the kind of momentum Romney has established. De Luna says, “Regardless of what your expectations are, I believe Governor Romney emerged as the definite front-runner. There’s several big states left, but he tends to do better in large, metropolitan areas.”
That brings us to the Golden State. Will California make a difference? De Luna says, “I think California is always relevant. It’s not obviously a Republican stronghold, yet it has a lot of delegates involved. So there’s a new formula emerging about not just winning a primary, but since few states are a winner or take all delegate primary.”
Desert resident, George Bovis says, “It’s a big state, very important and more progressive on social issues. Whoever is going to articulate the best vision deserves to win.”
California’s primary is coming up on June 5th.
