NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, whose lead in South Carolina has evaporated in recent days, downplayed expectations and touted his character here on the eve of the first-in-the-South primary.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell — who finally endorsed Romney Friday after staying neutral for months — emphasized Romney’s values in their closing arguments to South Carolina voters, many of whom identify themselves as evangelical Christians.
"Character counts and values matter,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell didn't mention Romney rival Newt Gingrich by name but was clearly drawing a distinction between Romney and the former House Speaker, who has been dogged by accusations about his past personal life. In the past few days, one of Gingrich's ex-wives charged that he wanted an "open marriage" that would allow him to continue an extramarital affair. Gingrich deneid the accusation.
“Family is where our happiness really lies," added Ann Romney after her husband told a smallish crowd at the convention center here about wooing his “high school sweetheart.”
For some voters, the dichotomy in family histories between Romney and the twice-divorced Gingrich was too much to shake in making their final calculation about whom to support on Saturday.
“That open-marriage thing was just a bit much for me,” said Mary Warren, an accountant from Charleston. “He may have changed, but who really knows? I trust Mitt’s moral fabric.”
With his seemingly insurmountable lead here gone, Romney is desperate to capitalize on Gingrich’s most glaring liability — particularly with female voters.
Still, Romney’s campaign is bracing for a potential defeat in the Palmetto State, which would dramatically alter the trajectory of the 2012 race heading into the Florida primary later this month.
If Gingrich wins South Carolina, Romney would lay claim to just one victory in the first three nominating contests, hardly the swift knock-out punch for which his campaign was hoping.
“I said from the very beginning that South Carolina is an uphill battle for a guy from Massachusetts,” Romney said at a campaign event earlier in the day, chalking up Gingrich’s recent surge to his roots in neighboring Georgia.
And in an interview on the Laura Ingraham radio show, he said, "I expect that Newt will win some primaries and contests and I expect I will as well."
Just last week, Romney had a comfortable double-digit lead in polls. Some analysts now say that the new accusations from Gingrich’s ex-wife will do little to slow the surging Gingrich.
“We expect a reaction by the electorate to the personal revelations about Gingrich to be registered on Saturday. However, we do not think it will be substantial enough to erase the lead Gingrich has over Romney,” Clemson University political scientist Dave Woodard said Friday after releasing a new poll showing Gingrich with a 6 percentage point lead on the eve of the election.
However, prominent Romney supporters weren’t so bashful in their predictions
“We are going to take this election tomorrow,” declared Haley, saying that all that she wanted — on this, her 40th birthday — was a “President Romney.”
