WASHINGTON — The Republican establishment started to coalesce around Mitt Romney in earnest on Wednesday, with Jeb Bush and other leading Republicans pressuring Rick Santorum to leave the race after a thumping in the Illinois primary.
WASHINGTON — The Republican establishment started to coalesce around Mitt Romney in earnest on Wednesday, with Jeb Bush and other leading Republicans pressuring Rick Santorum to leave the race after a thumping in the Illinois primary.
But, on what should have been a triumphant day, Romney found himself having to defend his conservative credentials anew after one of his own top advisers, Eric Fehrnstrom, remarked that “everything changes” for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said. “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”
The remark fueled criticism that Romney molds his principles to fit with political goals. Democrats pounced, and by day’s end his GOP opponents were waving the draw, shake and erase toys at campaign events in Louisiana.
It happened early Wednesday on CNN when Fehrnstrom was asked if the extended primary fight “might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election.”
The aide didn’t back away from the comment when asked to clarify it. He said only that the general election is “a different race, with different candidates, and the main issue now becomes” exclusively President Barack Obama.
It didn’t take long for the Democratic National Committee and Romney’s Republican rivals to seize on the remark.
In Louisiana, Santorum brandished an Etch A Sketch and told voters he is a candidate who stands “firmly on the rocks of freedom, not on the sands of an Etch A Sketch toy.”
Gingrich stood on stage elsewhere in the state and explained to his audience just what the toys were. “Gov. Romney’s staff, they don’t even have the decency to wait until they get the nomination to explain to us how they’ll sell us out,” he said. “I think having an Etch A Sketch as your campaign model raises every doubt about where we’re going.”
Louisiana holds its primary Saturday. Santorum is favored in the state, though Romney’s allies are airing TV ads there even though the South has proven less hospitable to Romney.
Beyond Saturday, polls show Romney has the advantage heading toward Maryland’s April 3 primary.
For his part, Obama on Wednesday headed to Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma on a trip aimed at answering critics of his energy policies, sure to be a key issue in the fall campaign. His first stop was a plant in Nevada that uses solar panels to power homes, part of an effort to highlight his programs to expand renewable energy sources.
The president’s GOP critics poked back at Obama before Air Force One even took off.
Gingrich issued a statement saying Obama was answering a real-world problem with a “solution that is totally disconnected from the practical realities of the world and has little chance of success.” Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit arm of a Republican super PAC, launched an ad on TV stations in the areas on Obama’s itinerary and on national cable channels faulting the president for “bad energy policies” that are driving up gasoline prices.