“With the Iowa caucuses less than three weeks away, the narrowed Republican presidential contest between Romney, Newt Gingrich, and the surging Ron Paul remains a muddle,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in Salon.com. This landscape has led Romney to focus on a new strategy to win the GOP presidential nomination: surviving a tough fight in January to win more favorable states in February.
Schaller argues that the crucial step for Romney is to attack Gingrich “using a negative television and radio blitz on the issue of Medicare to win Florida’s pivotal seniors.” He suggests, “If Romney can pair his younger support four years ago with a better performance among Florida seniors this year, he can win Florida on January 31.” Such a win might carry him through to February’s primaries in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada, where he was successful in 2008.
