Republicans head to South Carolina, guns blazing

Republican presidential contenders brought buckets of cash and sharpened rhetoric to South Carolina on Wednesday for an intense 10-day battle that may define whether anyone can stop front-runner Mitt Romney's march to the party's nomination.
Despite fierce attacks from his rivals, the former Massachusetts governor captured neighbouring New Hampshire's primary 16 points ahead of the rest of the field on Tuesday, to go two-for-two at the start of the nomination race after his narrow victory in Iowa's caucuses a week earlier. "I've got a good start. I've got an uphill climb in South Carolina ahead of me, but it could not have worked out better for me last night," Romney said on NBC's "Today" show.
Winning South Carolina's primary on January 21, the next step in a series of state-by-state contests, would essentially extinguish his rivals' hopes of keeping Romney from becoming the nominee to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the general election in November.
Romney's campaign added to the other contenders' worries by announcing he had raised $24 million in the last three months of 2011. That haul will almost certainly far outstrip the war chests of any of the party's other presidential contenders. Romney leads in polls in the southern state, but could face a tougher time convincing its many religious conservatives and those hit hard by the economic downturn that he is their best bet to defeat Obama.
In his narrow win in Iowa, Romney's Mormon faith was a stumbling block for some evangelical Christians, who also make up a large percentage of the South Carolina electorate. Trying desperately to stop Romney, his rivals have blasted him as a heartless corporate raider who enjoyed cutting jobs while amassing a fortune as a private equity executive, and have assailed him as not being a true conservative.
"The issue is ultimately going to be between a Reagan conservative and a Massachusetts moderate, and I think as his record is better known, he will grow weaker and weaker very fast because his record is to the left of voters in South Carolina," Newt Gingrich, who is pinning his campaign hopes on the southern state after lagging in New Hampshire, told reporters in Rock Hill.
In New Hampshire, Romney outpaced rivals Ron Paul, a US congressman from Texas known for libertarian views who came in second, followed by Jon Huntsman, a moderate former US ambassador to China and former governor of Utah who had focused his campaign on New Hampshire.
Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry have lashed out at Romney for his record at Bain Capital - an unusual debate in the business-friendly Republican Party. Both men are from southern states, which they hope will help win over South Carolina's conservative voters. Influential conservatives like radio host Rush Limbaugh have warned that the attacks could undermine the party's free-market ideals, but most of Romney's rivals have kept them up.
However, Ron Paul's campaign defended Romney's business record and said rivals attacking him were "employing leftist tactics" that proved they are unfit to be president. Gingrich allies plan to spend $3.4 million on ads in South Carolina criticising Romney's business record. With South Carolina's 9.9 percent jobless rate above the national average, Perry has pointed to businesses in the state that were shuttered by Bain.
"The issue is venture capitalism is about creating jobs. And this vulture capitalism is about, you know, making money regardless of whether people lose their jobs or not," Perry said on Fox News. Flush with victory, Romney dismissed the attacks as good practice for what is expected to be a bruising general election fight against Obama.
"They tried the same line here in New Hampshire and it fell extraordinarily flat. People here in the state know that in the work that I had we started a number of businesses, invested in many others, and that overall created tens of thousands of jobs. So I'm pretty proud of that record," Romney said from Manchester on CBS' "This Morning."
"Look, it's - it's going to be, you know, all guns blazing in my direction and I've got broad shoulders. I can handle that. I'm not worried about it," Romney said. Romney became the first Republican who is not an incumbent president to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. He may now find it easier to convince sceptics that he is the strongest Republican to take on Obama, despite qualms about moderate policies he pursued as Massachusetts governor.
The stumbling US economy is expected to be the central issue of the 2012 campaign. Romney argues that his experience as head of Bain, where he made a personal fortune estimated at some $250 million, plus his government experience, helps makes him the best candidate.
He took aim at Obama in his New Hampshire victory speech, which aides said would set the tone for the rest of the campaign. "We know that the future of this country is better than 8 or 9 percent unemployment. It is better than $15 trillion in debt. It is better than the misguided policies and broken promises of the last three years - and the failed leadership of one man," he said.