US presidential hopeful and front-runner for the Republican Party nomination Mitt Romney has won significant backing from a leading supporter of the so-called Tea Party movement.
South Carolina senator Jim DeMint said the former Massachusetts governor told a group of conservative congressmen that he was on a mission “to save the country”.
“That’s what I needed to hear,” said DeMint, “and I think everyone in the room needed to hear, that really our country’s at stake, and we want a president who understands that this is not business as usual. What we got from him is a sense of urgency that our country’s in trouble and we need some real leadership.”
DeMint did not formally endorse Romney but his support was welcome on the eve of a primary in Louisiana that he is unlikely to win. The Real Clear Politics opinion poll aggrigator website has Rick Santorum standing at 36.8 per cent popular support, with Romney at 26, Newt Gingrich standing at 18.8 and the fourth candidate still in the race, Ron Paul, at a distant and almost statistically irrelevant 5.5 per cent.
Forty-six delegates to the Republican convention in Florida in August are up for grabs. At present, Romney has 560 delegated committed to him, Santorum has 246, Gingrich 141 and Paul just 66. – (Reuters)