Romney vows ‘new conservative era’ if elected president
WASHINGTON, Saturday
White House hopeful Mitt Romney has promised to unite Republicans and defeat President Barack Obama in the “battle for the soul of America” as officials in Maine prepared to unveil the results of party caucuses on Saturday.
Romney and his main rivals for the nomination, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and religious conservative Rick Santorum, all made the pilgrimage to the Conservative Political Action Conference here to court the Republican base and lay out their plan to oust Obama in November.
“This country we love is in jeopardy,” Romney told a CPAC crowd of thousands Friday.
“I am convinced that if we do our job, if we lead with conviction and integrity, that history will record the Obama presidency as the last gasp of liberalism’s great failure and a turning point for a new conservative era.”
The upcoming November election, he said, “really is a battle for the soul of America.”
Romney’s bid to be the party’s 2012 standard-bearer has been rattled by concern he cannot close the deal with core conservatives, a charge that was highlighted this week when he lost three nominating contests to Santorum.
But former Massachusetts governor Romney sought to put aside once and for all the lingering doubts about his credentials, saying “I was a severely conservative Republican governor” who cut taxes, balanced the budget and slashed costly government programmes.
Romney has been accused of being a flip-flopper on social issues such as abortion, but on Friday he asserted he would be a “pro-life presidency.”
He vowed to end US funding to the UN Population Fund, “which supports China’s barbaric one child policy,” and “reverse every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent life.”
He also refused to shy away from his own status as a multi-millionaire businessman and investor, a quality that may not sit well with some Americans who have been struggling during the economic downturn.
“I’m not ashamed to say I was successful,” he said to a standing ovation.
It was a rousing return to CPAC for Romney, who dropped out of the 2008 race for the Republican nomination at that year’s CPAC gathering after failing in a bid to rally conservatives against Senator John McCain.
Four years later Romney finds himself the confident if bruised frontrunner, and has the endorsements of several establishment Republicans, including McCain — although he has lacked much conservative backing.
Santorum recalled the 2008 Republican bid in his CPAC speech, saying the candidates listened to advisors who urged them to “abandon our principles to get things done, to win.”
Santorum has been derided by critics as too socially conservative to beat Obama in November.
