MANCHESTER, N.H. — Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum emerged from the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday with the same purpose in mind: to get to South Carolina and dethrone Mitt Romney.
But while Santorum will continue selling himself as the strongest conservative alternative, Gingrich has a more direct plan: to take Romney down.
Rick Santorum spoke to voters Tuesday after a fight with Newt Gingrich for fourth place in the New Hampshire primary, saying the campaign has an opportunity to be the "true conservative" of the race. (Jan. 10)
Gingrich’s and Santorum’s back-of-the-pack finishes Tuesday — Gingrich took fourth place and Santorum fifth, according to preliminary returns — give neither candidate a big bump heading to a state that has chosen the eventual Republican nominee in every primary since 1980.
But each insists he is well positioned to rally divided conservative voters around him — and stop the advance of Romney, whose back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire have lent his campaign an air of inevitability.
“This is step two of a long process,” Gingrich said at his election-night party in downtown Manchester.
Santorum, at his party, said: “We delivered a message, not just for New Hampshire, but a message for America.”
Gingrich has long boasted a formidable campaign operation in South Carolina, with five offices, more than a dozen staff members and a strong network of tea party support, including two large and well-organized groups in Myrtle Beach and Charleston.
But the real game-changer for Gingrich could be the blistering assault he and his supporters have launched against Romney.
“The goal is to get rid of Romney,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said. “Our goal is to remove Mitt Romney from the competitive ranks.”
The campaign has spent $250,000 to air a brutal ad in South Carolina portraying Romney’s “pro-abortion” actions as Massachusetts governor. And a pro-Gingrich group operating independently will spend $3.4 million characterizing Romney as a corporate raider who bankrupted companies and cut thousands of jobs as the head of Bain Capital.
“Romney appointed a pro-abortion judge, expanded access to abortion pills, put Planned Parenthood on a state medical board, but failed to put a pro-life group on the same board,” the campaign ad’s narrator says.
She concludes: “Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney — he can’t be trusted.”
Gingrich will also continue touting his long record as a Republican Party leader, his “Reagan conservatism” and his career as a House member from adjoining Georgia — and he will contrast it all with Romney, he said at a polling stop in Manchester on Tuesday.
“I was for Reagan when [Romney] was an independent,” Gingrich said. “I was for the Contract With America when he was running to the left of Ted Kennedy. When you look at the totality of his career, it’s a real stretch for South Carolinians to decide that the state of [Michael] Dukakis and Ted Kennedy is sending them a conservative leader.”
Whether such efforts can blunt Romney’s momentum is unclear. For weeks, Gingrich had pledged to run a positive campaign, and his abrupt change of heart could turn off voters. And his talk of Romney’s work at Bain Capital could alienate conservatives who view the message as an assault on capitalism.
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