In several television appearances after his drubbing of the Republican field in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Mr. Romney assailed the angry attacks about his work for Bain Capital and urged his opponents to settle on a “new course” for their campaigns as they move south.
“I think their argument fell flat here in New Hampshire,” Mr. Romney said of his rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He added on “Fox and Friends” that “the evidence from New Hampshire last night, where both the speaker and Rick Perry were both in single digits, suggest this kind of attack on free enterprise is simply not gaining traction.”
There was little evidence that Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, or Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, were planning to let up on Mr. Romney’s record at Bain Capital as the campaign moved to South Carolina ahead of the primary in that state on Jan. 21.
In a morning speech in Rock Hill, S.C., on Wednesday, Mr. Gingrich did not repeat his attack on Mr. Romney’s record at Bain, but he refused to apologize for condemning what he called “crony capitalism” in his campaign.
“Raising questions about that is not wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said, adding that “we need a conservative nominee to beat Barack Obama because we need someone who stands for the principles of the American people.”
And Mr. Gingrich issued a veiled warning of his own for Mr. Romney and conservative leaders who have criticized Mr. Gingrich’s oratory as attacks on free enterprise.
“There is enormous pressure in the establishment not to bring up things. Don’t talk about who got all the money. Don’t raise the question,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I am prepared to stand up to every level of pressure.”
Also waiting for Mr. Romney in South Carolina are millions of dollars worth of attack ads financed by a “super PAC” supporting Mr. Gingrich’s campaign. The group, Winning our Future, has said it will spend $3.4 million to distribute parts of a documentary that rips into Mr. Romney’s work at Bain.
But Mr. Romney’s campaign moved quickly on Wednesday to trumpet his ability to respond to such attacks. His campaign announced that he raised $24 million in the last quarter of 2011, and that it had $19 million in available cash to help define himself positively with voters and to push back against attacks.
This brings the campaign’s total 2011 haul to $56 million. Earlier this year, the Romney campaign had said it hoped to raise $50 million for the primary campaign.
The money will provide Mr. Romney a significant advantage over his Republican rivals as the campaign moves later this month into states like Florida, which has some of the most expensive television advertising markets in the country.
The Republican presidential campaign is not taking a breather today. Candidates hit the trail in South Carolina first thing Wednesday morning and are scheduled to make stops across the state all day long as they kick off the 10-day campaign there.
Mr. Perry, who skipped campaigning in New Hampshire to focus on South Carolina, planned four events on Wednesday. In an appearance on CNN, he asserted that if he won in the Southern state it would “wipe out” Mr. Romney’s victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“If Mitt’s thinking he’s got it in the bag, he’s in for a surprise,” Mr. Perry warned.
Mr. Perry’s campaign also released a new, 60-second television commercial that will begin running in South Carolina. The positive ad includes testimonials from military veterans about Mr. Perry, who served in the Air Force, and images of churches designed to appeal to the state’s religious voters.
“I’m the outsider who’s willing to step on some toes,” Mr. Perry says in the ad. “We can surely recapture what is great about America.”
In his appearance Wednesday morning, Mr. Gingrich said that the country needed entirely new leadership in Washington.
“You have a bipartisan establishment that has been running this country that has created a giant mess,” Mr. Gingrich said. “We want to change not just Obama. We have to change the entire direction of the United States of America.”
Mr. Gingrich said that if he became the Republican Party nominee he would follow Mr. Obama everywhere he goes within four hours so that he could respond effectively.
“He ain’t going to be able to run. He ain’t going to be able to hide,” Mr. Gingrich said to enthusiastic applause from the large crowd.
Mr. Gingrich said that he believed he was the “only conservative who can actually carry a record of achievement into that debate” against Mr. Obama. He said Republicans cannot afford to nominate someone who is “inarticulate, moderate or has no record of achievement.”
And in an earlier interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on “The Daily Rundown,” Mr. Gingrich conceded that South Carolina may be the last opportunity for Mr. Romney’s rivals to prevent him from becoming the party’s nominee.
“If Romney can win South Carolina, he’s probably going to be the nominee,” Mr. Gingrich said. “He has so much money. If he also has the momentum, it’s going to be very hard to stop him.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 11, 2012
An earlier version of this article misstated the branch of the military in which Gov. Rick Perry of Texas served. It was the Air Force, not the Army.
View the original article in NYTimes.com
