US election 2012: Newt Gingrich fights to rally hardcover Republican base

“I have great respect for my good friend Rick Santorum. He’s a terrific
person, we’ve known each other for the past 20 years, but the fact is, he’s
not going to win in Florida,” Mr Gingrich told a crowd at the Aloma
Baptist Church in Winter Park on Saturday evening.

“Please just try to convince your friends the only effective practical
conservative vote on Tuesday is for Newt Gingrich,” he said, “that’s
just a fact.”

Mr Santorum was not campaigning in Florida after returning home to
Pennsylvania to be with his hospitalised three-year-old daughter Bella, who
suffers from a rare and usually fatal genetic condition Trisomy 18.

Mr Santorum, a fervent Christian who trails a distant third in the polls, has
already rejected as “arrogant” a previous invitation from Mr
Gingrich to step aside to unite the conservative vote, but Mr Gingrich once
again raised that possibility.

“Rick’s going to get a decent vote on Tuesday,” he said, after
attending a service on Sunday at the Idlewild Baptish megachurch in Lutz, “I
have no doubt the two of us are going to collectively out-score Romney and I
think that’s going to make a pretty interesting conversation when the time
comes.”

Mr Gingrich said his campaign, which has been out spent by a ratio of four to
one by Mr Romney and his affiliates, was now down to its last $600,000
(£381,606).

Promising a “straight-out contest”, Mr Gingrich predicted a
protracted fight for the nomination and the soul of the Party.

“We will go all the way to the Convention,” he vowed, “I
believe the Republican
Party will not nominate a pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro tax increase
moderate from Massachusetts.

Even so, a decisive victory in Florida would provide a massive boost for Mr
Romney, allowing him to regain the momentum that he lost in South Carolina
which was won by a resurgent Mr Gingrich.

Florida, a demographically mixed state with 18m people that is evenly split
between Republicans and Democrats, is seen as a serious test of a
candidate’s electability come November, as well as carrying 50 delegate
votes in the race for the Republican nomination.

Although Mr Gingrich continues to be the favoured candidate in national polls
of Republican votes, surveys of the electorate as a whole show him falling
to a heavy defeat against Barack Obama, while Mr Romney is tied
neck-and-neck with the President.

Campaigning in Naples, a retirement haven in south-west Florida, Mr Romney
taunted Mr Gingrich for his sudden decline in support.

Attacking Mr Gingrich’s weak debate performances this week, he said: “Mr
Speaker, your trouble in Florida is not because the audience is too quiet or
too loud or because you have opponents that are tough.”

Several members of the audience – a suntanned bunch, many in all-white
leisurewear and carrying small dogs – agreed.

“Romney’s very level-headed,” said Doug Macburnie, an 80-year-old
retired trucker. “He was my governor in Massachusetts and he ran things
coolly there.”

Another, Margaret Klava, 67, added: “Gingrich is too flighty. Mitt is my
man.”

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