The curtain rose on the US presidential election that will see President Barack Obama square off against Republican rival Mitt Romney as one of the would-be stars took a bow and exited from the stage. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum ended his campaign for the Republican Party's nomination on Tuesday, effectively handing Romney victory in the months-long contest to represent the centre-right party in November general elections.
"We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting," he said in a press conference in his home state of Pennsylvania. And although two other Republicans remain in the race - Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul - neither can mount a serious challenge to Romney. The development should allow Romney to turn his attention to the battle against Obama and filling his campaign war chest for what is sure to be an expensive campaign for the White House.
Obama has already been touring the country for weeks to tout his policies. In remarks at a Florida university Tuesday, he continued to draw a sharp line with Romney without mentioning him by name. "There is a fundamental difference in how we think we move this country forward," Obama said, accusing Republicans of wanting to focus on tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. "We tried this for eight years before I took office. We tried it."
Obama's campaign took Santorum's exit from the race as a chance to issue an attack on the challenger from moral high ground. "It's no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to grind down his opponents under an avalanche of negative ads," Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.
"But neither he nor his special-interest allies will be able to buy the presidency with their negative attacks. The more the American people see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him and the less they trust him." A Washington Post-ABC News poll released earlier Tuesday showed Obama had the advantage heading into the election, but that Romney was seen as more adept at handling the economy.
Romney meanwhile has been steadily notching endorsements from party politicians and leaders who had also been increasing pressure on Santorum and Gingrich to leave the race. Primary races remain, most notably on April 24 in five states including the large prizes of New York and Pennsylvania. But even Romney's remaining Republican rivals acknowledge he is now the party's standard bearer.
On Sunday, Gingrich said it was "realistic" that Romney was "far and away, the most likely Republican nominee." But despite scaling back his campaign operations considerably in recent weeks, he said he would remain in the race until Romney got all the needed delegates. Romney however can effectively ignore Gingrich and Paul and now spend less time on the campaign trail and more time raising the considerable funds he will need to challenge Obama.
Obama has already been filling his calendar with several fundraising events each week, where supporters pay up to thousands of dollars for a ticket. On Tuesday, he attended two fundraisers in Florida, including a high-rolling event at a home in Palm Beach, where tickets started at 10,000 dollars per donor. The president has raked in a huge campaign chest, with some 161.5 million dollars raised through February. Romney had brought in 75 million dollars, but had been spending most of it on the primary elections.
The bigger challenge for Romney, however, could be aligning his positions to appeal to a broader electorate. Romney has been forced to move to the right to appeal to the party faithful and the Tea Party movement with its focus on smaller government and lower taxes, as the primary contest dragged on for weeks longer than his campaign had hoped.
Santorum and Gingrich had both painted themselves as the true conservatives in the race, even as Romney quietly made gradual progress in his struggle to win over the party's conservative base. Among his appeal all along has been his perceived "electability" against Obama, but he must now walk a fine line so as not to alienate that base while still appealing to centrist voters that often make the difference in nationwide elections.