JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The awkward dance between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, as both seek the conservative high ground in the Republican presidential nomination, pivoted Sunday as Santorum abruptly departed the trail to tend to his ill daughter.
Gingrich continued to stress that he is the superior candidate to take on front-runner Mitt Romney, as each man competes for conservatives in a race that is fast becoming not big enough for both of them.
They are friends who served together in Congress in the 1990s, partners in passing welfare reform, and they have been hesitant to criticize each other openly. Santorum’s delicate family situation complicates matters further.
Instead of Florida, Santorum spent Sunday at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who he said has pneumonia. She was born with Trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems.
The Gingrich and Santorum campaigns have not been in touch – according to people on both sides – and Gingrich said it would be “inappropriate” to call Santorum in the midst of a trying moment for his family.
“I have no doubt the two of us are going to collectively outscore Romney,” Gingrich said. “And at that point it might be a pretty good conversation."
Santorum’s surrogates hit the trail in Florida in his absence Sunday, and Santorum held a pair of invitation only telephone town halls with voters in Florida and Minnesota on Sunday night. The campaign already was looking past Florida, where Santorum trails in the polls, though he is showing no signs of quitting the race with plans to campaign in Missouri and Minnesota Monday.
Even as Gingrich’s Florida polling has been in a tailspin both nationally and in Florida -- an NBC/Marist poll out Sunday showed Romney at 42 percent,Gingrich at 27 percent and Santorum with 16 percent -- Gingrich is looking at a different set of numbers. He said his vote combined with Santorum’s represents enough of a conservative anti-Romney bloc to deny Romney the nomination, and Gingrich vowed to see the fight through to the August GOP convention in Tampa.
“Look, the long campaign of 2008 between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama led them to win the presidency,” Gingrich said.
“There's no reason a long campaign has to be a bad thing. … It's very likely that at the convention there will be a non-Romney majority and maybe a very substantial one. My job is to convert that into a Gingrich majority.”
Gingrich slammed Romney on Sunday for the steady stream of attacks he likened to "carpet-bombing," The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, Romney kept the pressure on Gingrich, casting him at an appearance in south Florida as an influence peddler and continuing his heavy advertising blitz questions the former House speaker's ethics.
Gingrich has directly courted Santorum votes, including at a tea party forum held at a church in Orlando on Saturday. He expressed his fondness for Santorum but said “Rick’s not going to win Florida,” and he needed the votes to take down Romney.
Both men have not raised nearly as much money as Romney, but have a major patron bankrolling Super PACs allied with their campaigns. In Gingrich’s case, it’s casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has acknowledged giving $10 million to the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future Super PAC. For Santorum, it is Foster Friess, a Wyoming investor who has donated heavily to the Red, White and Blue Fund.
“I'm committed to Rick Santorum, and I'm going to be giving more to Rick Santorum," Friess told the Wall Street Journal. “It's just a matter of when and how much.”
Gingrich casts himself as Santorum’s elder and a seasoned leader who was a Reagan ally and architect of the 1994 GOP takeover. Santorum, who served two terms in the House and two in the Senate before he was swept out of office by 18 percentage points in the 2006 Democratic wave, claims the mantle of the “full-spectrum conservative” and has strong appeal with the religious right. He warned in Thursday's debate that Gingrich's volatility could undermine the Republican cause in the fall.
The religious conservative backing comes from Santorum’s culture warrior record in the Senate, including leading the fight against the practice known as partial-birth abortion. The two men share many of the same policies in such areas, though Santorum has been more outspoken in his career on social issues and Gingrich’s pair of messy divorces could hurt him.
At a Jan. 14 summit in Texas, evangelical leaders voted to endorse Santorum, though the verdict was not unanimous and disputed by the Gingrich campaign.
Some conservative figures have been rallying to Gingrich’s side in the face of escalating attacks from Republican Party leaders warning that Gingrich is too erratic to be a viable nominee.
Stockbridge businessman Herman Cain, a former presidential candidate, endorsed Gingrich on Saturday night in part because, he said, both men have been through the “sausage grinder” of a tough campaign. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – who considered a presidential bid of her own – said on Fox News on Saturday that the media and party elites are trying to “crucify” Gingrich.
“If for no other reason to rage against the machine, vote for Newt,” she said. “Annoy a liberal.”
On Fox News Sunday – one of three morning show appearances – Gingrich mentioned Cain and Palin, adding, “we're seeing the conservative movement start to come together.”
Several attendees interviewed at Gingrich rallies across the Sunshine State this past week said they were waffling between Gingrich and Santorum.
John Cosenza, one of thousands attending a Sunday rally at The Villages, Fla., said Gingrich’s punchy, 30-minute stump speech – in which he didn’t mention Santorum but called Romney a “liberal” – swayed him to the former speaker’s camp.
“I think if you’re a conservative or even a tea party guy like I am, you’ve got to go with Newt,” Cosenza said.
Longtime Gingrich supporter Bonnie Bray, attending the same rally, said “It would be handy” if Santorum dropped out soon, but she doesn’t think it is likely.
“He’s too young and feeling the spotlight to do that,” she said.
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