COLUMBIA, S.C. — Anxious to end Mitt Romney’s two-state winning streak, his rivals hammered him as unfeeling toward laid-off workers and out of step with conservative Christians while Romney put his dominance on full display, touting his $56 million fundraising haul as the presidential campaign barreled into South Carolina on Wednesday.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, reveling in the race’s turn to the South, struck a populist note in Rock Hill. Without naming Romney, he continued his previous attacks on the front-runner as a former venture capitalist whose deals cost people their jobs.
Gingrich told an enthusiastic crowd of about 300 that he wants “free enterprise that is honest. I want a free enterprise system that is accountable.”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, mindful that some conservatives are unhappy with him for labeling Romney a “vulture capitalist,” struck a defensive note Wednesday but stood by his criticism.
“I understand restructuring. I understand those types of things,” Perry told supporters outside Columbia. “But the idea we can’t criticize someone for these get-rich-quick schemes is inappropriate from my perspective.”
In the audience, retired car salesman Charles Ray said Perry was right to pursue the issue. Ray wore a pinned-on sign that said “ABM” — for “Anybody But Romney” — and said he felt that sentiment even more strongly after seeing the look in Romney’s eyes when he spoke of liking to fire people.
“It was a gleam like, ‘I enjoy that,”’ Ray said. “That’s not an enjoyable feeling to get fired or fire somebody.”
Although Romney was talking about firing underperforming insurance companies, his ill-chosen words may be hard to live down in an economically distressed state like South Carolina.
But, on the strength of his big win in New Hampshire, Romney seemed already to be looking ahead to a general election race against President Barack Obama.
While predicting that winning South Carolina would be “an uphill battle,” Romney projected a self-assurance that must be wearing on his five opponents. The former Massachusetts governor dismissed their attacks as acts of desperation.
And he said that while other campaigns can afford to stay in the nomination fight for now, “I expect them to fall by the wayside eventually for lack of voters.”
Underscoring his strong position, Romney’s campaign announced that it had raised $56 million for the primary through Dec. 31 and is sitting on more than $19 million in cash, dwarfing his opponents’ fundraising.
Despite the rougher tone and tougher ideological terrain ahead, Romney hopes to force his opponents from the race by achieving a four-state streak with victories in South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida 10 days later. He released a new Spanish-language TV ad in Florida on Wednesday.
Romney posted a double-digit win Tuesday night in New Hampshire after a squeaker the week before in Iowa — making him the first non-incumbent Republican in a generation to pull off the back-to-back feat.
But the way ahead passes through minefields that held Romney to fourth place in the South Carolina primary when he ran in 2008: Republicans skeptical of his Mormon faith and reversals on some social issues.
Tapping into the state’s religious fervor at his Rock Hill rally, Gingrich pledged to fight “anti-Christian bigotry.” In TV ads, he chided Romney for being inconsistent in opposing abortion.
Perry pushed his patriotism in a state with a large military presence. He highlighted his service as an Air Force pilot with a new TV ad featuring veterans praising his character.
Ron Paul, who finished second in New Hampshire, made a more unusual appeal to service members and veterans, emphasizing his anti-war message.
He told a cheering crowd of about 300 in West Columbia that the U.S. should bring its soldiers home from war and stop meddling in other countries’ affairs. Paul said military personnel are sick of wars that drain the nation’s resources and hurt families.
All the candidates were campaigning in the state Wednesday. Romney, Gingrich and Paul were being joined there by Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman. Perry, who skimped on New Hampshire to focus on South Carolina, had already been there for days.
Several of Romney’s rivals have made clear they will seek to undercut the chief rationale of his candidacy: that his experience in private business makes him the strongest Republican to take on Obama on the economy in the fall.
Obama’s team, treating Romney as their likely general election opponent, joined the effort to darken the picture of his days in private enterprise. Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday night that Romney had worried more about investors doing well than he did about the employees of companies bought by his venture capital firm.
On Wednesday, Romney offered a practical-minded defense of layoffs that might not reassure voters worried about holding onto their jobs.
“Every time we had a reduction in employment it was designed to try and make the business more successful and, ultimately, to grow it,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
He got some support from his libertarian-leaning opponent Paul, who said other Republican candidates were slamming Romney for market-oriented restructuring of corporations.
“I just wonder whether they’re totally ignorant of economics or whether they’re willing to demagogue just with the hopes of getting a vote or two,” Paul told MSNBC on Wednesday.
Romney said his opponents sound like Obama and other Democrats attacking the free enterprise system and encouraging jealousy toward the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. “It’s a very envy-oriented attack,” he told NBC’s “Today” show.
TV ads are filling South Carolina’s airwaves, including negative spots like the Gingrich one assailing Romney on abortion, an issue that resonates strongly with evangelicals who make up the GOP’s base here.
“He governed pro-abortion,” the Gingrich ad says. “Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney: He can’t be trusted.”
About $3.5 million has been spent on TV ads in South Carolina, the bulk of it by Perry and a supportive super PAC. But that doesn’t count the $3.4 million a pro-Gingrich group has pledged to spend to go after Romney, or the $2.3 million a pro-Romney group plans to spend in the coming days. Santorum and a super PAC friendly to him also are pouring money into the state, as is an outside group working on Huntsman’s behalf.
Expect a flood of more hard-hitting commercials — primarily aimed at the front-runner — in a state known for brass-knuckled Republican politics.
For all of Romney’s challenges, the presence of a cluster of socially conservative candidates fighting to be his chief alternative could work in his favor by splitting the vote on the party’s right flank. Santorum, Gingrich, Perry and others split the faith-focused vote in Iowa.
South Carolina could end up being the last stop for some candidates. Perry, with back-to-back dismal showings, is looking to South Carolina to right his struggling campaign. Santorum and Huntsman also have vowed to press on.
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