MANCHESTER, NH — Mitt Romney dominated the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday as networks called his victory almost immediately after the polls closed.
“Tonight we made history!” he said to the cheering crowd at his victory party in Manchester.
In a lucky break for Romney, Ron Paul was quickly called as a distant second, ensuring that none of the candidates who the Romney camp is most concerned about — mainly Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — will leave the state with strong momentum. Despite a late boost in the polls, Huntsman appeared poised to take third place, a disappointing and almost certainly fatal result for a candidate who staked his entire campaign on a strong showing in the state. Nonetheless, he told his supporters he wasn’t giving up yet.
“I say third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Hello South Carolina!”
For Romney, the vote couldn’t have come soon enough. In the final days of the race his rivals, especially Gingrich, unloaded a wave of brutal attacks targeting Bain Capital’s history of downsizing workers. With a helping hand from Democrats, the story dominated local and national news coverage by Tuesday, drawing a panicked response from conservative commentators who fear that Romney’s rivals are reinforcing Obama’s general election talking points.
Romney tackled the issue head on in his victory speech, accusing the other candidates of threatening the GOP’s ultimate goal of retaking the White House.
“Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial,” he said. “In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him.”
He added: “We have to offer an alternative vision. I stand ready to lead us down a different path where we’re lifted up by our desire to succeed not dragged down by our resentment of success.”
Romney didn’t help his case with a series of quotes that, fairly or not, his opponents eagerly cited in order to call attention to his wealthy background. First he told an audience that he knew what it was like to worry whether he’d get a pink slip, a head scratcher given Romney’s career arc as a child of privilege who earned two Harvard degrees en route to a life as a high-profiled private equity CEO. Then, while discussing the importance of flexibility in choosing a health care provider, he uttered the already infamous line, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
Gingrich’s primary party in Manchester was sparsely populated by actual New Hampshire Newt supporters on Tuesday night as a band played 1970s hits in between breaks to listen to CNN coverage. Media and political tourists dominated the crowd and many of his supporters had come in from out of state. But the hardcore that showed indicated they were plenty happy to see Gingrich confront Romney over Bain, especially given the negative attacks lobbed at their candidate by pro-Romney groups first.
“I’m uncomfortable with dirty politics, but he’s shown he wants to be positive and was attacked relentlessly,” Gary Hensley, who voted for Gingrich earlier that day, told TPM. “And there’s nothing intrinsically dirty about pointing out someone’s record.”
Still, Gingrich and Perry are likely to face enormous pressure in the coming days from conservative commentators to at the very least tone down the “corporate raider” talk if they wants to keep up their flagging campaigns. Michael Royston, a Gingrich volunteer from Connecticut admitted to hearing some blowback from Republicans while phone banking on Tuesday who were concerned Gingrich was on a kamikaze mission against Romney.
“People are talking about his ‘scorched earth’ politics,” he said. “But I kept telling them, Newt is in it to win it.”
Things are unlikely to get any friendlier in South Carolina, a state that’s hosted some of the ugliest primary fights in recent memory. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is donating $5 million to a pro-Newt Super PAC that’s planning to run a short film skewering Romney’s Bain career in the harshest possible way. And Rick Perry, who did not compete in New Hampshire this week, is already previewing plenty of rough attacks of his own, referring to Bain Capital as a “vulture” on Tuesday.
“They swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton,” Perry said.
After broadcasting Romney’s victory speech on FOX News in Columbia, South Carolina on Tuesday night, two of the next three ads were attacks targeting the frontrunner: a spot from Paul and another from Gingrich accusing Romney of pursuing “pro-abortion” policies as governor.
But there are signs that the tide may be turning. In stark contrast to Gingrich’s jarringly combative Iowa caucus speech, he refrained from attacking any of his rivals on Tuesday night, by name or otherwise. Could this be the first step towards disarming a campaign that’s on the verge of going nuclear?
Romney can claim some momentum from his New Hampshire showing. A big South Carolina win could go a long way to cut the primary short, preventing a long slog through the mud that could easily continue through Super Tuesday and lend more bipartisan credibility to Democrats’ anti-Romney messaging. Unlike what was until recently the dominant critique of Romney on the right — that he isn’t conservative enough to Republican voters’ liking, the notion that Romney is a callous Gordon Gekko type will be a critical part of Democratic strategy should he secure the nomination.
The big question now is how far Gingrich et al are willing to go before they decide they either can’t win or it isn’t worth damaging their standing with the party to continue lobbing bombs at the likely nominee.
Watch his speech below:
Evan McMorris-Santoro contributed to this report from Columbia, SC.
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
"Standing within the party"? No one likes Gingrich and only morons and Texans like Perry. I'd say neither one has anything remotely resembling a "standing in the party."
Not yet Mitt! you need 1144 delegates to win the nomination and you only got 23 todate I believe!! Don't count your Chickens before they hatched!
The Ken Doll as political hero. How nice. The white bread candidate for all those white bread voters in New Hampshire. The only positive result from this primary is the other candidates mercilessly attacking him as a corporate predator making a ton of money off of financially troubled companies and then throwing blue collar stiffs out of work. So Jimmy Morrison of The Door was wrong: You can petition the Lord with prayer If Romney actually gets the nomination, I hope he's so punch-drunk from personal attacks that his political handlers will have to point him to President Obama. And I hope and pray for once President Obama takes off the gloves and gets medieval on his white bread arse.
With the aid of outside stimulus, Mittens splurged over the finish line. Ron Paul stayed hard on his heels. While Santorum went soft, he may be taking out the big stick in South Carolina. Can Huntsman pull off another shoot up the polls? Or will Nukie Newt crap all over some people's parades?
lancelotlink09
I am expecting a Banzai charge for Newter.
Well all, I have an early meeting at work tomorrow. Have a good evening one and all.
BTW, I think we have hit on an effective response to UncleRemus.
Lestatdelc Have a good night Les.
The computer says Ron Paul is a racist:
A visual comparison of word length between the feature on the coming race war and the rest of Paul’s works shows that the two are very similar. For reference, I have included a comparison of Paul’s works with my last blog post, which, incidentally was also statistically different from Paul’s writing on all measures.
http://peterslarson.com/2011/12/23/determining-aut...
Hoddes83 Thought you were leaving. Guess liar is another of your better traits.
Hoddes83 I love Obama too. What shall we talk about?
Hoddes83 The largest cabbage weighed 144 pounds.
That was my cousin "red cabage." He was a real fat ass, no nuthin', Ron Paul supporter.
Mickey BitskoHoddes83 I like exploding toads.
RON PAUL OUTREACH COORDINATOR ONCE BLAMED GAY MARRIAGE FOR RAIN AND CROP FAILURE
Right Wing Watch reports that the man running GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul’s church outreach in Iowa, Mike Heath, formerly of the Maine Family Policy Council and American Family Association, once suggested that gay marriage was to blame for Maine’s “endless rain and gloom.” “Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide the light of reason, and then the rain began,” he wrote. “Our crops are faring like our moods. The potato crop is blighted, and corn and fruit fields wither,” he added. Heath’s embarrassing antics led to his dismissal by the rest of the anti-gay marriage movement, until he cropped up recently in Paul’s campaign. As Chris Moody reports, Paul hired Heath to win over the social conservatives who dominate the Iowa caucus. Though Paul professes to be a libertarian, he seems to have yielded to polling that indicates support for civil unions or gay marriage is a “deal killer” for GOP caucus goers.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/09/38624...
Hoddes83
Here is a clip of Ron Paul giving a key-note speech to the John Birch Society, whose membership is scattered with known racists and anti-semites:
http://www.jbs.org/birchtube/viewvideo/1007/consti...
Lestatdelc too bad nobody is going to click on that, dummy
Hoddes83 Then you have nothing to worry about.
Lestatdelc He's still going to look under his bed before retiring.
Hoddes83 whenever this name-stealing spammer shows up, the collective IQ of the comment boards decreases by 85%.
RonPaul666 Don't go. We were just starting to make progress.
Doremus Jessup 2.0RonPaul666 Naw there is always tomorrow, you big dummy, LOL
Hoddes83 The dome on Monticello conceals a billiards room (billiards were illegal in Virginia).
Cut and run coward. RonPaul666
RonPaul666 So, you come here, threaten us, create multiple sock accounts of long-time users, post immature and asinine comments, whine about not being able to debate, and then copy-and-paste responses for hours, and you want to be taken seriously? F U C K Y OU
New Hampshire exit polls show that 86% of Ron Paul supporters thought they'd just voted for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mickey Bitsko LOL
Llestatdelc Only bot troll here is you. Are you ready to use one user name and come start debating your position without resorting to juvenile tactics and infantile name calling yet?
Llestatdelc
The metal instrument used in shoe stores to measure feet is called the Brannock device.
I love turning TPM comment boards into spam bot troll fests. It's a blasst.
Llestatdelc
We love it too. We show how unimportant Romney is, and get an excuse to post facts about Ron Paul.
Just days before the Iowa GOP caucuses, one of the state’s most high profile conservative politicians is strongly warning Republicans against voting for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). In an interview with Politico, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) suggested a Ron Paul presidency would be “dangerous” because of the candidate’s libertarian foreign policy positions:
“Iowa Rep. Steve King’s assessment on Ron Paul, one of the two co-frontrunners going into his state’s caucuses next week: “He’s not dangerous unless he’s president.” [...]
“I don’t think that the Paul supporters have really stepped back and thought about what would happen if Ron Paul were operating out of the Oval Office and the commander-in-chief of our armed forces,” King said.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/30/39585...
Here is a clip of Ron Paul giving a key-note speech to the John Birch Society, whose membership is scattered with known racists and anti-semites:
http://www.jbs.org/birchtube/viewvideo/1007/consti...
No, Hoddes83 does that. I do not.
Hoddes83 Ronulan are you a Bircher?
Hobbes83 Like I said, Birchers, Racists and disaffected youth who only read Hayek.
I love turning TPM comment boards into spam bot troll festss. It's a blast.
Llestatdelc
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
I love turning TPM comment boarrds into spam bot troll fests. It's a blast.
Llestatdelc
We love it too. We show how unimportant Romney is, and get an excuse to post facts about Ron Paul.
Reason is a libertarian magazine and the person who says Ron Paul lies is Ron Paul:
The early 1990s writings became liabilities for Paul long before last week's New Republic story. Back in 1996, Paul narrowly eked out a congressional victory over Democrat Lefty Morris, who made the newsletters one of his main campaign issues, damning them both for their racial content and for their advocacy of drug legalization. At the time, Paul defended the statements that appeared under his name, claiming that they expressed his "philosophical differences" with Democrats and had been "taken out of context." He finally disavowed them in a 2001 interview with Texas Monthly, explaining that his campaign staff had convinced him at the time that it would be too "confusing" to attribute them to a ghostwriter.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/01/16/who-wrote-ro...
Llestatdelc As do we; it gives us a chance to posts facts about your Dear Leader that you can do nothing to refute.
Ron Paul thinks that female soldiers should not have access to abortions.
He voted against Roll Call 215. H.R. 1588. Fiscal 2004 Defense Authorization/Vote to Insure that Women Soldiers Have Access to Abortions When Stationed Overseas. May 22, 2003.
If Ron Paul is the worst politician in the history of the country and has no chance in hell of ever being elected president, than some arse haul will steal my avatar, bastardize my name, and write innane BS all over this forum. Let's see what happens...now.
I knew that before you stole my identity. Oh, and thanks for proving me correct. You've been schooled quite sufficiently tonight. redcabage
I love turning TPM comment boards into spam bot troll fests.
Llestatdelc
We love it too. We show how unimportant Romney is, and get an excuse to post facts about Ron Paul.
Lestatdelc that nobody reads, LOL
Llestatdelc Then why are you positing here?
Llestatdelc Only 47 decimal places of pi would be sufficiently precise to inscribe a circle around the visible universe that doesn't deviate from perfect circularity by more than the distance across a single proton. (Frankly, I find that one hard to believe.)
Making History? Another rich white man wins the New Hampshire Republican primary?
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