PREVIEW: Pressure mounts on frontrunner Romney as next vote nears

By Anne K Walters Jan 19, 2012, 1:18 GMT

Washington - Republican Mitt Romney is under attack over his finances as the frontrunner for the party's presidential nomination attempts to shore up his position in the next state primary Saturday.

Romney heads into the South Carolina primary following a strong win in the first primary in New Hampshire last week and a narrow victory in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month.

As the state-by-state primary season narrows down the field of GOP candidates, the campaign hopes to come out of South Carolina and a Florida contest later this month with strong enough showings to knock the other candidates from the race and pocket the nomination. The winner of a series of primaries will face President Barack Obama in November 6 general elections.

But those other Republican candidates aren't letting Romney get away easily - he has come under fire for not releasing his tax returns, as well as his years as an executive at equity firm Bain Capital.

The wealthy Romney is being criticized for paying only a 15-per-cent tax rate - far less than the maximum 35 per cent - largely because most of his income came from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

His finances are coming under even greater scrutiny after an ABC News report Wednesday said he had funds in the Cayman Islands, which is known as a tax haven. But the campaign defended his finances saying he would pay the same taxes if the money were in US accounts.

Opponents such as former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich used Romney's tax rate as a rallying cry to demand he release his tax returns and to paint him as wealthy and out of touch. Meanwhile the White House used the controversy as a means to push for tax reform, a likely topic, along with the faltering economy and government spending, of the November election.

Romney has been hesitant to release the records, even as candidates have done so for decades. He has largely brushed off the calls, saying he would release the returns eventually, perhaps near the April tax filing deadline.

Gingrich has narrowed in on Romney in the most recent opinion surveys of South Carolina voters, even as the former Massachusetts governor still enjoys a fairly sizeable lead.

A CNN poll released Wednesday showed Romney with 33 per cent support among voters in South Carolina to Gingrich's 23 per cent, but Gingrich has added to his support since earlier in the month, while Romney has slipped.

Gingrich, who finished a disappointing fourth place in New Hampshire, is trying to save his campaign by painting himself as the conservative candidate to rally around and spending tens of thousands of dollars on television and radio ads in the southern state.

A group of Gingrich supporters earlier this month ran an attack video on Romney's time at Bain Capital, pointing to layoffs orchestrated by the firm that seemed to run counter to his claims his business experience would address high unemployment. However, the video was later denounced by Gingrich himself after inaccuracies were exposed and it was revealed that many of those interviewed for the film had lost their jobs long after Romney left the firm.

Other candidates seeking to be the party's conservative alternative to the more moderate Romney are fighting hard in South Carolina, where the state's many evangelical Christian voters with socially conservative values hold sway in elections.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who came out of Iowa just eight votes shy of Romney, and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who had a poor showing in Iowa and did not even compete in New Hampshire, also hope South Carolina will provide their campaigns with a much-needed shot in the arm.

But Santorum, Perry and Gingrich could split the vote among the state's social conservatives, who do not want Romney to be the nominee but cannot seem to unite around an alternative.

'I do sense frustration that there is not a single candidate that is being put up against Romney,' Oran Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Palmetto Family Council, told The State newspaper.

Gingrich has said that the other candidates should step aside and allow the party's conservatives to rally around him, and some pundits have done the same.

'From the standpoint of the conservative movement, consolidating into a Gingrich candidacy would, in fact, virtually guarantee victory on Saturday,' he said during a campaign stop.

But those candidates have continued to pick on each others' records and appear unlikely to unite anytime soon, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul will pull votes from a variety of candidates with his staunch calls for smaller government.

Romney, meanwhile, has focused on maintaining his momentum as the candidate to beat, refusing to be distracted by the tax issues, even as his own supporters have begun calling on him to simply release his tax returns.