Our political Quote of the Day comes from First Read that says former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney better be prepared for the attacks coming his way from other Republicans who want to squelch his front-runner status for the 2012 nomination:
*** Here come the attacks on Romney: Unlike past presidential-primary front-runners, Mitt Romney has enjoyed this advantage over the past year: His GOP rivals have largely attacked each other, and have left him alone. Just last week in the lead up to Iowa, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann were blasting Rick Santorum; Perry also went after Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Santorum for their previous service in Congress; and Jon Huntsman hit Paul over those racially charged newsletters — all leaving Romney unscathed. (The equivalent would be, in late 2007, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd all beating up each other instead of Hillary Clinton, which never happened.) But after Romney’s narrow win in Iowa, and now that Gingrich is looking for revenge, Romney has now become the target of attacks for the first time this campaign season. In fact, the Gingrich camp is now up with this TV ad hitting Romney in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The question becomes: How does Romney handle it?
So far you have to really say: not well. Romney’s margin in Iowa was not a great one and if there had been fewer conservatives, he’d be in bigger trouble. But now Michele Bachmann has dropped out.
On the other hand, Karl Rove (who supports Romney) thought it was a big win:
Not long ago few thought Mitt Romney could win both the very conservative Iowa caucuses and then the quirky, slightly contrarian New Hampshire primary. If he did, most assumed he would have a lock on the Republican nomination. For understandable reasons: No other GOP presidential candidate in an open race has achieved back-to-back victories in these first two contests.
By this time next week, we’ll know if Mr. Romney is 2-0. If so, he becomes the prohibitive favorite.
The other big Iowa winner is former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Iowa does winnow the field (as it did with Wednesday’s departure of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann). But it also gives unheralded contenders like Mr. Santorum a chance to jump into the spotlight. And in spectacular fashion, he did. He essentially tied the GOP front-runner, leap-frogging the governor of the second-largest state (Rick Perry) and the former speaker of the House (Newt Gingrich).
Mr. Santorum shouldn’t kid himself; he faces huge obstacles. He’s spent a year making Iowa his second home. Now he’s in less friendly, less familiar terrain. He hasn’t had to endure withering scrutiny but will shortly. His chief opponent has tremendous organizational and financial advantages and has been through the rigors of a presidential primary race. Still, Mr. Santorum has a shot, and that’s all he could have hoped for.
Looking ahead, he has to hope New Hampshire pays attention to what happens in Iowa (it traditionally hasn’t) and that he can rapidly cobble together money, organization and a message to compete in January’s primaries in South Carolina and Florida, as well as the Granite State. Until yesterday, Mr. Santorum hadn’t been in New Hampshire in a month, South Carolina for two, and Florida hardly at all…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.