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Rick santorum
Republican Rick Santorum has ended his bid for the White House, leaving Mitt Romney as the presumptive nominee.
The former Pennsylvania senator made the announcement at a news conference in the city of Gettysburg.
“While this presidential race is over for me, we are not done fighting,” said Rick Santorum, a social conservative.
Rick Santorum had been campaigning in Pennsylvania, his home state, ahead of its primary on 24 April.
But he was far behind Mitt Romney in terms of funding and was in danger of losing the state for the second time in six years, analysts said.
In 2006 Rick Santorum lost his Pennsylvania Senate seat by an 18-point margin.
In the current race for the Republican nomination, Rick Santorum lags far behind Mitt Romney in terms of the number of delegates needed to seal the nomination at the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, in late August.
Rick Santorum’s children and his wife Karen stood behind him in Gettysburg as he made the announcement that he was suspending his campaign.
He had taken time off the campaign trail in recent days as his 3-year-old daughter Isabella, who has a rare genetic disorder, was admitted to hospital.
Republican Rick Santorum has ended his bid for the White House, leaving Mitt Romney as the presumptive nominee
Rick Santorum proved to be the most resilient of the Republican rivals challenging Mitt Romney’s front-runner status.
In his statement Rick Santorum said he had surpassed expectations, adding that “against all odds, we won 11 states, millions of voters, millions of votes”.
“We were winning in a very different way,” Rick Santorum said.
“We were touching hearts.”
Rick Santorum remembered some of the volunteers he worked with during the campaign.
Without the help of people like Wendy in Iowa, who made 5,000 phone calls or the girls in Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose song “Game On” became an internet sensation, the campaign would not have come as far as it did, Rick Santorum said.
He mentioned his visit to the factory of the Minnesota manufacturer of his sweater vests, which became known as the former Senator’s signature outfit.
Rick Santorum won a total of 11 primaries and caucuses, and picked up additional delegates in states that awarded them proportionally.
He emerged on the national scene on the night of the Iowa caucuses in January, eventually winning the state by a whisker after victory was initially handed to Mitt Romney.
His old-fashioned, hard-working campaign style saw him visit every one of the Iowa’s 99 counties in the months preceding the vote, and won him the respect and support of many in the state.
Rick santorum continued to garner strong support in the Midwest and in the South, halting Mitt Romney in a swathe of states from Minnesota to Alabama and as far west as Colorado and North Dakota.
In conceding that he could not win the nomination Rick Santorum made no specific mention of Mitt Romney, and did not say whether he planned to endorse the front-runner.
However, he reportedly telephoned the former governor to concede shortly before speaking to reporters.
In a statement, Mitt Romney congratulated Rick Santorum on his campaign, calling him an “able and worthy competitor”.
“He has proven himself to be an important voice in our party and in the nation,” the former Massachusetts governor said.
Meanwhile, fellow candidate Newt Gingrich said Rick Santorum had run a “remarkable campaign”, adding that “his success is a testament to his tenacity and the power of conservative principles”.
Newt Gingrich, though, insisted that he would remain in the race in an effort to broaden the policy discussion and offer a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul congratulated the former senator on running a “spirited campaign”. Ron Paul has the fewest delegates but, like Newt Gingrich, has refused to pull out of the contest.
Despite them remaining in the race, many analysts quickly characterized Rick Santorum’s decision as the moment the general election campaign effectively began.
Mitt Romney, who made his fortune in a private equity firm is now seen as the man to take on Democratic President Barack Obama, a former law professor and community organizer, in November’s election.
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney eked out a narrow win in Ohio and was victorious in four other Super Tuesday states.
As expected, Mitt Romney cruised to victory in his home state of Massachusetts, as well as Idaho, Vermont and Virginia.
Mitt Romney also won in Alaska, which Ron Paul was pinning his hopes on for his only win of the nomination campaign.
Rick Santorum won a hat-trick of contests, while Newt Gingrich took his home state of Georgia.
Mitt Romney now leads the field with 415 delegates committed to backing him at the national Republican convention in August. A candidate needs 1,144 delegates to win the party’s nomination and go on to challenge Barack Obama in November’s election.
But Super Tuesday did not deliver a sufficiently convincing victory to end the race and convince Mitt Romney’s rivals to pull out.
After Tuesday’s 10-state voting marathon, Mitt Romney defended his position as the front-runner.
“I’m going to get this nomination,” Mitt Romney told supporters in Boston.
Mitt Romney and his wife Ann at their Super Tuesday primary rally in Boston
Mitt Romney easily won Massachusetts, where he was governor, as well as liberal-leaning Vermont and Idaho, where his fellow Mormons make up a chunk of the electorate.
He also won resoundingly in Virginia, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich failed to qualify for the ballot.
Rick Santorum, a former US senator from Pennsylvania, said his victories in Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota proved he was the bona fide conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
“This was a big night tonight,” Rick Santorum told supporters in Steubenville, Ohio. “We have won in the West, the Midwest and the South, and we’re ready to win across this country.”
After a cliffhanger count, Mitt Romney narrowly edged out Rick Santorum in Ohio, the night’s most coveted prize.
Ohio was important because no Republican nominee has taken the White House without winning the Midwestern bellwether state in the general election.
Of the 66 delegates on offer, Mitt Romney took home 35 compared to Rick Santorum’s 21, the Associated Press reports.
Rick Santorum began the race in Ohio with a big lead in the opinion polls, but Mitt Romney’s well-funded political machine overcame him in part through a heavy campaign of attack adverts.
Rick Santorum has attracted the support of religious conservatives with his opposition to gay marriage and abortion.
However, his outspoken remarks on birth control and the role of religion may have turned off moderate-leaning voters.
Exit polls showed Ohio voters thought Mitt Romney stood the best chance of beating Barack Obama; however, Rick Santorum appealed more to blue-collar voters.
Super Tuesday Guide
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, did not achieve the sweep of Southern states he hoped for.
But he vowed to stay in the race after his Georgia win.
“There are lots of bunny rabbits to run through, I am the tortoise. I just take one step at a time,” Newt Gingrich said.
With 96% of votes counted in Alaska, Mitt Romney was winning with 33% of the vote, ahead of Rick Santorum with 29%. Texas Congressman Ron Paul – who had been hoping to make the state his only win of the campaign – was trailing with 22% while Newt Gingrich held 14%.
Of the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the Republican presidential nomination, 419 were up for grabs on Tuesday.
Overall, Mitt Romney won at least 212 of Super Tuesday’s delegates, taking his total to 415, while Rick Santorum added 84, taking his count to 176, AP reports.
The race is not over yet as the next crop of primaries and caucuses will not do Mitt Romney any favors.
Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi and Hawaii hold their contests over the next 10 days.
Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will be hoping to halt Mitt Romney’s momentum and keep their challenges alive.
The drawn-out nomination fight, which has been waged in large part through negative television adverts, may have taken its toll on the Republican Party.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll showed only 35% of Americans looked upon Mitt Romney favorably, compared to 32% for Ron Paul, 23% for Newt Gingrich, and 32% for Rick Santorum.
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[googlead tip=”vertical_mic”]Republican Michele Bachmann, 55, won the Iowa Straw Poll Saturday, affirming her status as a top-tier candidate in the Republican race to challenge President Barak Obama in 2012.
Michele Bachmann received 28% of the nearly 17,000 votes cast. The Texas Republican, Ron Paul was close behind her with 27%. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty came in a distant third with 13% of the vote, followed by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum with 9% and businessman Herman Cain with 8%.
Michele Bachmann received 28 percent of the nearly 17000 votes cast
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The daylong political festival was the first indication of how these Republicans are faring with the Grand Old Party (GOP) base. Nine candidates were on the ballot, and voting ran for 6 hours on the campus of Iowa State University.
Voters came in from far and wide, some of the candidates organizing bus caravans to bring backers to the event. In the past the turnout has ranged from 14,000 to 23,000.
Free hamburgers and ice cream were provided and some candidates even paid the $30 entry fee for their supporters to vote in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll.
Sunday morning, it was the ultra-conservative Tea Party favourite Michele Bachmann who was doing the rounds of the talkshow studios on the big television networks, while the former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a poor third, became the first hopeful to announce he was dropping out of the race.
For Michele Bachmann, who won 28% of votes cast, it was the latest success in a rapid rise from local politics to Republican frontrunner.
As the result emerged late on Saturday, Bachmann, standing on the steps of her campaign bus, shouted what has become her slogan, just as “hope and change” was for Obama.
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“You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one … term … president.”
“I think what people see in me is I’m a real person, I’m authentic,” she said.
Michele Bachmann compared herself to Ronald Reagan, who is saw as one of the party’s giants by Republicans, in being guided by a core set of principles.
“I don’t compromise my core principles. That’s how you lead, you lead from principles.”
Bachmann’s weekend victory provides important momentum for her campaign and can expect an influx of financial support, but the bigger question for Republicans is whether her appeal can be broad enough to seduce enough voters in the November 2012 presidential election. Although there are eight declared candidates, realistically only three are still in the race: Michele Bachmann, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and the Texas Governor Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy on Saturday.
Although Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll, her vote is soft, with many still undecided.
Sue Matejka, 65, reflects the fluidity of Iowa Republicans. She travelled the three hours from her home in Olin, Iowa, to Ames for the Straw Poll in a bus paid for by Tim Pawlenty but, despite accepting his largesse, had no qualms about voting for Michele Bachmann.
“I am undecided,” she said. For her, the overriding imperative is a candidate who will unseat Barack Obama.
“It is between Bachmann and Perry. I haven’t heard enough about Perry. What is on paper looks good. What he has done for Texans is good,” she added.
Michele Bachmann has risen fast since being elected to Congress in 2006. She has made the most of frequent appearances on television, particularly Fox News, where she is a favourite because of her ultra-conservative views.
She is one of the most high-profile figures, along with Sarah Palin, in the Tea Party movement. In line with Tea Party principles, she adopted a hardline position during the debt crisis, saying she would not vote for raising the national debt ceiling and on Sunday repeated her view that deep cuts in federal spending were vital.
But it is her views on social issues that helped secure her win in Iowa, one of the most socially conservative states in the country outside of the south. Before joining Congress, she prayed outside abortion clinics.
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Michele Bachmann is also one of the most outspoken critics of homosexuality, co-owning with her husband, Marcus, a clinic in Minnesota where, according to an ABC report by an undercover team, counsellors encourage gay people to pray to get rid of homosexual urges.
“It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay,” she said in a speech in 2004.
While such views on social issues go down well in Iowa, Republicans know such statements will alienate many of the independent voters who decide elections nationwide.
Bachmann’s biggest problem is the entry into the race of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is a strong candidate. While Perry holds many of the same views as Bachmann on social issues, he said that while he is opposed to same-sex marriage in Texas, he thinks it is fine for New York, saying that is the prerogative of each state to decide. As governor of a state with the best record of job growth in the country, Rick Perry is better placed than Michele Bachmann to take on Barak Obama on the economy. Michele Bachmann acknowledged she cannot win on social issues alone and shifted the emphasis in her round of television interviews on Sunday to the economy.
“It will be an economics election.”
Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy earlier Saturday, came in 6th place with 3.6% of the vote, ahead of GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, all of whom didn’t compete in the contest.
The poll results are nonbinding, amount to a popularity contest and offer candidates a chance to test their get-out-the-vote organizations.
Michele Bachmann’s victory may provide a road map for the Iowa campaign heading into the caucuses that are just four months away. But the straw poll has a mixed record of predicting the winner of that contest.
In 2008, Romney won the straw poll, but the big news was the surprising second-place showing of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses, but dropped from the race soon after. McCain, who eventually won the nomination, didn’t compete in the straw poll and finished in 10th place.
Meanwhile, Barak Obama, dropping in the polls and aware of the boost Republicans received from four days of campaign events in Iowa that attracted 700 journalists, heads off on Monday on a three days bus tour of the mid-west, including Iowa. A CNN poll last week put Obama on 47%, down from 52% in January. The White House election is 16 months away but he has a lot of ground to make up.
