Michigan Loss Means Long Fight For Romney [VIDEO]

Losing the Michigan primary would strip the last of the varnish off the image that Mitt Romney is the inevitable GOP nominee for president.

It would also commit him to the long march he says he is prepared to wage.

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A Rick Santorum victory next week would be bad for Romney — a public-relations nightmare for a native son of Michigan. But political observers say it would mean little to the campaign that still has more money than any other and remains better organized to compete to the end.

Santorum has shot up in the polls in Michigan and even leads Romney in some.

Romney is employing a familiar strategy: attacking his opponent’s credibility. He did just that in vanquishing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Iowa and Florida.

Santorum benefits from mistaken religious identity

Rick Santorum’s political good fortune in the Republican presidential primaries has come about in large part because of his appeal to evangelicals.

A Roman Catholic, he is a beneficiary of more than two decades of cooperation between conservative Protestants and Catholics who set aside theological differences for the common cause of the culture war.

Now running about even with Mitt Romney, Santorum has nearly doubled his support from white evangelical Republicans.

The high regard extends to Santorum’s personal life. His seven children have been home-schooled, a practice much more common among conservative American Protestants than Catholics, who have a network of parochial schools built over centuries.

And Santorum’s concerns — he opposes gay marriage and abortion, and promotes traditional roles for women — contribute to that evangelical appeal.

Gingrich pins campaign on a cluster of contests

Largely on the sidelines of the GOP race, Newt Gingrich is pinning his fleeting Republican presidential hopes on Georgia and a cluster of states that vote the same day.

He’s likely to sustain two more losses before Super Tuesday — in Michigan and Arizona, two states he’s ceded to rivals Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. And he could end up riding a nine-state losing streak by the time the March 6 contests roll around.

The former House speaker, who began his political career in Georgia, has no opportunities for break-out performances in debates. He used them twice before to pull his campaign back from the brink.

As the political world focuses on Tuesday’s contests in Michigan and Arizona, Gingrich’s look-ahead, Super Tuesday strategy is filled with risks.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)