In Ohio, Republicans try to stick to economic issues

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Reuters:

(Reuters) - After a week in which the race for the Republican presidential nomination often was a forum for divisive social and religious issues, the campaign turned Friday toward jobs and the economy, key issues in the upcoming "Super Tuesday" contests.

Rick Santorum, fighting to stay within sight of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney and score a game-changing victory in Ohio's primary on Tuesday, stuck mostly to calls for less government regulation and lower taxes in making his pitch to Ohio manufacturers and entrepreneurs.

"We cannot have an economy that's flourishing when government is micro-managing them and adding cost after cost after cost," Santorum said at a rally.

In Bellevue, Washington, Romney struck a similar economic theme before enthusiastic crowds.

He accused Democratic President Barack Obama of "turning us into a European-type welfare society where people feel entitled to what their neighbor has."

It was familiar campaign rhetoric that has taken on new urgency in the days before Tuesday's contests in 10 states that could alter the direction of the race - particularly if Santorum is able to energize enough working-class conservatives to hold on to what polls say is a slim lead in Ohio.

That state is the big prize in Tuesday's contests because it is a politically divided state that will be a critical battleground in the November 6 presidential election, when Obama will face the eventual Republican nominee.

After wins in Arizona and Michigan last week, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could take a step toward locking down the nomination if he can win Ohio and do well in several other Super Tuesday states.

But even as his rocky campaign seems to have found some footing, doubts about his ability to defeat Obama persist.

In a Sunday column released in advance, conservative commentator George Will said that neither Romney nor Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, "seems likely to be elected."

In casting the presidential race as a lost cause for Republicans, Will argued that conservative voters should focus on electing like-minded candidates to the U.S. House and Senate.

Another conservative commentator, Charles Krauthammer, wrote in the National Post that although Tuesday's contests could "scramble the deck," Romney is likely to remain the "slow, steady, unspectacular (and) weak front-runner in an even weaker field."

Krauthammer, echoing other conservatives, said Santorum had wasted a golden opportunity to deal Romney's campaign a fatal blow in Michigan by putting divisive social and religious issues on center stage.

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May the weakest man win (although Krauthammer is right about Santorum IMO).