THE REPUBLICAN presidential front runner Mitt Romney is set to win the Nevada caucuses today by a wider margin than his 14-point victory in Florida on January 31st.
A Public Policy Poll yesterday showed Mr Romney with 50 per cent of the vote, 25 per cent for Newt Gingrich, 15 per cent for Rick Santorum and 8 per cent for Ron Paul.
The candidates held a flurry of rallies in Nevada yesterday, except for Mr Santorum, who moved on to Missouri, which will hold its primary on Tuesday, when Colorado and Minnesota will also vote.
Mr Romney received the endorsement of the property and entertainment billionaire Donald Trump late on Thursday, following reports that Mr Trump would support Mr Gingrich.
Mr Trump’s endorsement is a mixed blessing. He last year spread the “birther” controversy that questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in the US.
In a Pew survey last month, 20 per cent of Republican respondents said a Trump endorsement would make them less likely to vote for a candidate. The White House was so delighted to see Mr Trump standing alongside Mr and Mrs Romney in Las Vegas that it tweeted the news.
The themes of poverty and the housing crisis have dominated the campaign since the Florida primary. Mr Romney is still trying to limit damage from an interview with CNN in which he said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich; they’re doing just fine.”
The clip of Mr Romney saying “I’m not concerned about the very poor” went viral, despite Mr Romney’s efforts to explain that he is most concerned about the struggling middle class.
Critics such as the left-leaning group Americans United for Change pointed out that the policies advocated by Mr Romney, including his support for Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan, would shred what is left of the safety net.
Yet again, Mr Romney has given the impression that he is out of touch with people in the US, where 15 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and another 51 million live just above it.
Mr Obama’s speech at a national prayer breakfast on Thursday was interpreted as a rebuke to Mr Romney. “I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself,’, Mr Obama said. For rich people to give up tax breaks “coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required’,” he added.
Mr Obama this week announced a plan to help middle-class families refinance their mortgages.
“It’s wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” he said in another rebuke to Mr Romney, who last autumn said the housing market should “run its course and hit the bottom”.
The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, played into the Democratic narrative of heartless Republicans when he dismissed Mr Obama’s plan, saying, “None of these programmes have worked. I don’t know why anyone would think this next idea is going to work. All it does is delay the clearing of the market. As soon as the market clears and we understand where the prices really are, that will be the most important thing we can do in order to improve home values around the country.”
Mr Obama was strengthened by the unemployment figures for January. Joblessness has fallen to 8.3 per cent, the lowest in three years. “These numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery,” Mr Romney said. “We can do better.”