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Romney claims decisive N.H. win

By: Alexander Burns  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71286.html
January 10, 2012 01:32 PM EST

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Mitt Romney claimed a decisive and widely expected victory in Tuesday night’s New Hampshire presidential primary, easily outdistancing runner-up Ron Paul and leaving his conservative challengers trailing far at the back of the pack.

The former Massachusetts governor is the first-ever Republican who is not an incumbent president to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, and Romney supporters hope his easy finish here will send a signal to the party that it’s time to start uniting behind him.

But even as Romney basked in his win — he addressed a crowd of elated supporters less than half an hour after the polls closed — his rivals signaled that they are now girding for a savage fight in South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary.

In his remarks, Romney turned his attention toward President Barack Obama and declared that he speaks for voters struggling with “the disappointing record of a failed president.”

“The last three years have held a lot of change, but they haven’t brought much hope,” Romney said. “Americans know that our future is brighter and better than these troubled times.”

And in a word of warning to his Republican rivals, who have begun to attack his record as a private equity executive, Romney told the crowd: “This is such a mistake for our party and our nation.”

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Romney was drawing 39.2 percent of the vote to Paul’s 22.8 percent. In third place was Jon Huntsman, with 16.9 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both with just over 9 percent.

With 69 percent of precincts reporting, Romney was drawing 38 percent of the vote to Paul’s 24 percent. In third place was Jon Huntsman, with 17 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both with approximately 10 percent.

Rick Perry, the Texas governor who has largely avoided campaigning in New Hampshire, had less than 1 percent of the vote.

The AP and multiple television networks projected that Paul’s second-place finish would hold up once all the votes are in. Speaking to supporters in Manchester, Paul cast the New Hampshire result as a validation of his libertarian philosophy.

“I sort of have to chuckle when they describe you and me as being dangerous,” Paul told the crowd, embracing his insurgent identity: “We are dangerous to the status quo.”

As for Romney, Paul said: “We’re nibbling at his heels.”

The one-two finish by Romney and Paul was widely predicted in public polling, so the race for third place took on outsize significance in the last stretch of the New Hampshire race.

And by finishing third — even 20 points behind Romney — Huntsman gains just enough credibility as a national candidate to press his effort forward in South Carolina. In his election-night remarks, Huntsman urged his supporters to look to the next election later this month.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re in the hunt,” he said. “Third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentlemen. Hello, South Carolina!”

Huntsman, whose anti-war views have earned him applause from young voters as well as moderate-leaning elites, declared in his speech: “Afghanistan is not this nation’s future, and Iraq is not this nation’s future.”

Meanwhile, the candidates who have seemed most menacing to Romney — Santorum, Gingrich and Perry — fell short even of their limited expectations in New Hampshire.

Gingrich, who had earned the endorsement of New Hampshire’s powerful Union Leader newspaper, and Santorum, who rolled into the state after an encouraging near-win in Iowa, must now go into South Carolina with no particularly imposing momentum behind them.

Gingrich, especially, has indicated he plans to wage open war on Romney in the Palmetto State, attacking Romney’s background as CEO of Bain Capital and releasing a South Carolina television ad Tuesday accusing Romney of having a “pro-abortion” record on social issues.

A super PAC supporting Gingrich’s campaign — dubbed Winning Our Future — has also booked millions of dollars in South Carolina airtime to run ads on Romney’s connection to Bain layoffs.

The former House speaker asked his supporters Tuesday night to “make a list of every person you know in South Carolina and every person you know in Florida.”

“I believe we can reach out and we can create a majority that will shock the country,” Gingrich said. “It is a daunting challenge, but consider the alternative.”

Perry, who spent Tuesday night in South Carolina instead of New Hampshire, released a statement as returns rolled in dismissing the whole Granite State contest as a sideshow.

“Tonight’s results in New Hampshire show the race for ‘conservative alternative’ to Mitt Romney remains wide open,” Perry said. “I skipped New Hampshire and aimed my campaign right at conservative South Carolina, where we’ve been campaigning hard and receiving an enthusiastic welcome. I believe being the only nonestablishment outsider in the race, the proven fiscal and social conservative and proven job creator will win the day in South Carolina.”

Earlier in the day, Perry hurled his own rhetorical bomb at Romney’s Bain record, telling voters in Fort Mill, S.C.: “They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”

Those attacks didn’t have time to sink in here in New Hampshire, and it’s unclear whether Romney’s foes would have found a receptive audience in a state where Romney is well-liked, and next door to Bain’s headquarters in Boston.

Two exit-poll statistics reported by CBS News underscored Romney’s built-in advantages in New Hampshire: 60 percent of voters called the economy the most important issue in the race, while 33 percent said a candidate’s most important quality was his ability to defeat President Barack Obama.

Since electability and the economy are the two pillars of Romney’s campaign message, his rivals appear to have found themselves fighting on unfriendly ground here in the Granite State.

Hence Gingrich’s argument, earlier Tuesday, that hard-core conservatives would ultimately have to unite around another candidate in the next stage of voting.

“We’re all going to be dividing the vote, and I think it will shake itself out when we get to South Carolina,” he said.

Given the outcome in New Hampshire, that will be no small task. None of the would-be anti-Romneys can claim a mandate on the right from the results here, meaning they will continue to compete against each other, as well as Romney, in the first-in-the-South primary next week.

Still, Romney reminded his supporters in his victory speech that the campaign is not over, telling them: “Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to work.”

Reid J. Epstein, Bill Nichols, Jake Sherman, Juana Summers and Mackenzie Weinger contributed to this report.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC