« Previous Entry | Main | Next Entry »

Posted: January 18, 2008 7:04 PM
Trailing in S.C., Romney Bets Big in Nevada
Email This

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won Michigan’s GOP contest Tuesday, hopes to keep his winning streak going with a jackpot in Nevada Saturday, leaving rivals Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to battle it out in South Carolina.

Romney is currently polling well ahead of the rest of the Republican pack with 34 percent support, the Associated Press reports. McCain trails him at 19 percent and Huckabee is polling at 13 percent.

The former governor’s appeal in Nevada stands in sharp contrast to a McClatchy South Carolina poll, where McCain is polling at 27 percent, Huckabee at 25 percent and Romney in third with only 15 percent.

Besides getting to take advantage of a more low-profile race in Nevada, “for Mr. Romney, Nevada presents a particular opportunity. His faith — he is a Mormon — proved a hindrance in Iowa and promises to be one in (South Carolina), which also has a significant number of evangelical voters who have a history of antipathy to Mormonism,” the New York Times reports.

Romney is also boosted in Nevada by the state’s two largest newspapers, the Review Journal and the Reno Gazette-Journal.

The Gazette-Journal chose Romney for his experience running the Salt Lake City Olympics.

“He showed that he could bring disparate groups together, clean up a mess left by his predecessor and put on possibly the most successful games ever,” the Gazette-Journal stated.

Romney is also making efforts to increase his popularity nationally. A recent ad on his campaign Web site aims at “broken” facets of Washington, DC.

“If you send the same people back to Washington just to sit in different chairs, nothing will happen. I will change Washington,” Romney says in the ad. “I will take it apart and put it back together. I know how to bring change.”

In another effort to reach national voters, Romney will appear on NBC’s “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno Friday night.

“It worked for Huckabee. He won Iowa, so apparently it was the right strategy,” press secretary Eric Fehrnstrom said, according to the Washington Post. “We’ve determined that the path to the White House goes through the Jay Leno show,” adding that appearing on the nationally-televised show is the “only way he could be in South Carolina and Nevada at the same time.”