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On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is sitting pretty with most of the opinion polls giving him a well over 20 percentage point lead over his rivals. That is something in stark contrast to his mere 8-vote victory in last week’s Iowa caucuses.
Presenting an average of nine different surveys, The New York Times projected that Romney is on course to garner 42.8 per cent of the votes in New Hampshire as against 19.3 for his nearest rival, Congressman Ron Paul, and 13.2 per cent for former Senator Rick Santorum, who nearly defeated him in Iowa.
Romney has all along held a comfortable position in New Hampshire and his prospects received a further boost this week with a timely endorsement from Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
Among those pitching for Romney is South Carolina’s Indian American Governor Nikki Randhawa Haley, who campaigned for him in New Hampshire on Saturday. The next outing will be South Carolina, where Haley promised big support for Romney.
Ahead of the Tuesday primary, Romney delivered a strong performance in a televised debate in Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday night. By all accounts, Romney emerged unscathed in the debate where, as the front-runner, he had been widely expected to be the target of an onslaught by his five rivals, who instead were busy fighting among themselves.
Romney himself kept up the attack on President Barack Obama. Amid hopes among Democrats that emerging signs of a turnaround on the jobs front will shore up Obama’s re-election chances, Romney argued that the president cannot claim any credit for this development.
Welcoming the December jobs report indicating US unemployment dropping to 8.5 per cent and addition of over 200,000 jobs during the month, Romney quickly added: “But it’s not thanks to President Obama. His policies have made the recession deeper, and his policies have made the recovery more tepid.”
The debate, hosted by ABC News and Yahoo!, saw Paul, Santorum and former Speaker Newt Gingrich going after each other. Clearly, the fight seemed to be for the second slot in New Hampshire as Romney’s lead appeared unassailable. Paul, the libertarian Congressman, branded Santorum “a big government person, along with him being very associated with the lobbyists and taking a lot of funds”. The latter retorted, terming Paul’s comment “a ridiculous charge”.
Paul, who is stoutly opposed to America going to war across the world, also stuck to his description of Gingrich as a “chicken hawk,” saying that the former Speaker backed wars without ever having served in the military. “I’m trying to stop the wars but at least I went (to serve) when they called me up,” Paul said.
Although the attacks on Romney were relatively mild, he was still targeted by some of his rivals. Santorum took aim at Romney’s repeated assertions that with his long private sector experience, he knew better than others how to fix the economy. But Santorum put it to him: “Business experience doesn’t necessary match up with being the commander in chief of this country.”
Romney retorted, commenting: “People who spend their life in Washington don’t understand what happens out in the real economy. They think that people who start businesses are just managers.”
Presenting an average of nine different surveys, The New York Times projected that Romney is on course to garner 42.8 per cent of the votes in New Hampshire as against 19.3 for his nearest rival, Congressman Ron Paul, and 13.2 per cent for former Senator Rick Santorum, who nearly defeated him in Iowa.
Romney has all along held a comfortable position in New Hampshire and his prospects received a further boost this week with a timely endorsement from Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
Among those pitching for Romney is South Carolina’s Indian American Governor Nikki Randhawa Haley, who campaigned for him in New Hampshire on Saturday. The next outing will be South Carolina, where Haley promised big support for Romney.
Ahead of the Tuesday primary, Romney delivered a strong performance in a televised debate in Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday night. By all accounts, Romney emerged unscathed in the debate where, as the front-runner, he had been widely expected to be the target of an onslaught by his five rivals, who instead were busy fighting among themselves.
Romney himself kept up the attack on President Barack Obama. Amid hopes among Democrats that emerging signs of a turnaround on the jobs front will shore up Obama’s re-election chances, Romney argued that the president cannot claim any credit for this development.
Welcoming the December jobs report indicating US unemployment dropping to 8.5 per cent and addition of over 200,000 jobs during the month, Romney quickly added: “But it’s not thanks to President Obama. His policies have made the recession deeper, and his policies have made the recovery more tepid.”
The debate, hosted by ABC News and Yahoo!, saw Paul, Santorum and former Speaker Newt Gingrich going after each other. Clearly, the fight seemed to be for the second slot in New Hampshire as Romney’s lead appeared unassailable. Paul, the libertarian Congressman, branded Santorum “a big government person, along with him being very associated with the lobbyists and taking a lot of funds”. The latter retorted, terming Paul’s comment “a ridiculous charge”.
Paul, who is stoutly opposed to America going to war across the world, also stuck to his description of Gingrich as a “chicken hawk,” saying that the former Speaker backed wars without ever having served in the military. “I’m trying to stop the wars but at least I went (to serve) when they called me up,” Paul said.
Although the attacks on Romney were relatively mild, he was still targeted by some of his rivals. Santorum took aim at Romney’s repeated assertions that with his long private sector experience, he knew better than others how to fix the economy. But Santorum put it to him: “Business experience doesn’t necessary match up with being the commander in chief of this country.”
Romney retorted, commenting: “People who spend their life in Washington don’t understand what happens out in the real economy. They think that people who start businesses are just managers.”
