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White House hopefuls head to conservative confab
Thousands of Republicans gathering in the US capital Thursday sought to plot a path to presidential victory, with Mitt Romney still aiming to win over the conservative base and be the party's champion in November elections.
Stung by losses to religious conservative Rick Santorum this week in three voting contests, Romney must court the core faithful who carry heavy political weight but have given little love to his 2012 White House campaign to oust President Barack Obama.
Few if any lawmakers streaming through the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) were even mentioning Romney or the other three candidates by name as they addressed some 10,000 politicos and sought to focus their energies on a battle plan to thwart Obama's bid for a second term.
But some attendees and high-profile members of Congress sounded notes of concern that the race for the Republican nomination could drag on all the way to the party's convention in Tampa, Florida in late August.
"It's interesting to see the conservative base is pretty divided between all four of them," Republican Senator Jim DeMint told AFP after addressing the conference.
As for Romney and what he must do to earn the trust of core conservatives, DeMint demurred. "I think he'll figure it out," he said. "They'll all get it together."
Written off only a few weeks ago, Santorum won contests on Tuesday in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri -- the latest turnaround in the volatile race to pick a candidate to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in November.
While the startling defeats did not derail Romney's campaign, they put the former Massachusetts governor on notice that he is not invincible and raised questions about his conservative appeal.
And so on Friday he, along with Santorum and rival Newt Gingrich, will drop off the state-by-state campaign trail and address the throngs at CPAC.
The fourth candidate, congressman Ron Paul of Texas, is not on the schedule, but conservatives here are contending with a slew of presidential hopefuls who have expressed intent to stay in the race all the way to the convention.
"The way it's set up this year with the divided delegates -- it could very well go to the convention," DeMint told CNN.
A protracted race could exhaust candidates and drain their resources that many believe would be better spent in a head-to-head matchup with Obama.
Romney said that while such an outcome was unlikely, "anything is possible." "I expect one or the other of us will be able to garner the kind of support necessary to become the nominee and that will allow us, of course, to begin raising money for the general election," he told Fox News.
Senator Marco Rubio was quick to tamp down concern that conservatives had yet to coalesce behind one man.
"We have four really good candidates," Rubio said. "At the end we're all going to come together, and we know that right?"
Steering clear of internal divisions, Rubio focused on Obama, declaring him "a terrible president" who has put the US economy into a deeper hole.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, too, painted over any possible divisions among conservatives seeking to unite behind a single candidate.
"Now the trick is to stick together, and keep our focus where it belongs," McConnell told the gathering.
Senator John McCain, who won the 2008 nomination despite losing 19 states and eventually lost to Obama, worried that a protracted barrage of negative campaign ads could hurt the Republican White House chances.
"It does look more like a food fight than real debates," McCain, who has endorsed Romney, told Fox. "And I would hope that we could bring this to a close as soon as possible, but that's up to the voter."
CPAC attendees were quick to unload, particularly on Romney, a multi-millionaire businessman who continues to face withering accusations of "flip-flopping" on key conservative issues.
"He's just not convincing enough," Sandra Kern, a contractor working on a government agency project, told AFP, adding that Romney has failed to articulate his conservative vision for America as other candidates have.
"What's his plan? What's his goal?"
Romney has three big state victories under his belt, and leads in the all-important delegate count that determines the nominee, but he and the rest of the Republicans face an enthusiasm gap.
Experts have pointed to low overall turnout at caucuses and primaries, and Romney's tepid polling numbers, that could end up handing Obama a second term should the divisive Republican race continue through the summer.
