Romney fights for political life in New Hampshire
BEDFORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, fighting for his political life, said on Monday he expects to win New Hampshire's primary vote but even a defeat would not stall his bid for the White House.
The former Massachusetts governor, whose once-dominant lead in the state has vanished in recent weeks, added that he was the only Republican in the race who could beat Barack Obama because, like the Democratic front-runner, he's a new face.
The 60-year-old multimillionaire said he was energized by a Sunday debate where he tangled with the new leader in the polls, John McCain, on immigration and taxes.
"Right now it's a neck-and-neck race. But with the debate last night and the support I received from that debate I anticipate winning tomorrow," he told reporters at a campaign stop in the southern New Hampshire town of Stratham.
Later in Bedford, he exhorted about 400 supporters to rally behind him in Tuesday's primary, the next battleground in the state-by-state process of choosing the Republican and Democratic candidates for November's presidential election.
"Get your friends to vote. Get everyone you can to vote," he told the last rally of his New Hampshire campaign.
Romney, who would be the first Mormon U.S. president, faces a growing threat from McCain, the 71-year-old veteran senator from Arizona who has opened a 5-point lead in the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Monday.
The stakes are high for Romney, a former venture capitalist with telegenic looks who maintains a summer home here but has struggled to shake off accusations of shifting positions for political convenience on issues such as abortion.
A loss in New Hampshire after his defeat by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee last week in Iowa could fuel serious doubts over his prospects given the tens of millions of dollars of his own fortune that he has poured into the race.
TEMPERING EXPECTATIONS
Fighting back a cold, he sought to temper expectations, saying even a second-place showing in New Hampshire could position him well for the nomination after placing second in Iowa and winning Wyoming's primary on Saturday.
"That will actually say that I'm clearly one of the leading contenders," he told reporters. "That would mean I would probably have more votes than anyone else in those first three states," he added. "This is not a one or two state campaign. This is a 50-state campaign."
He said the surge of support for Obama, an Illinois senator who is seeking to become the first black U.S. president, worked in his favor.
"There's no way that our party would be successful in the fall if we put forward a long-serving U.S. senator to stand up against Barack Obama's message of change," he said.
"It is going to take a person who is himself an innovator like myself ... to be able to go head to head with Barack Obama and win," he added.
He painted McCain as a Washington insider who would be no match for Obama much in the same way New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is rapidly losing support to Obama despite stressing that she has more experience than the junior senator.
His aides see another silver lining in Obama's surge.
New Hampshire's large bloc of independents -- about 45 percent of registered voters -- could gravitate toward Obama and away from McCain, who rallied independent voters when he won New Hampshire's 2000 primary, his aides say.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
