Mitt Romney claimed a significant boost to his hopes of taking the White House from Barack Obama on Wednesday after the Republicans won a crucial local election that was seen as a referendum on his policies for kick-starting the US economy.
Mr Romney, recently confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee, said the result in Wisconsin would 'echo beyond the borders' of the state
Mr Romney's supporters hailed the 7-point victory for Scott Walker, the fiscal-firebrand governor of the mid-western state of Wisconsin, as a "disaster" for the incumbent President and a ringing endorsement of Republican calls to slash government spending.
The Wisconsin election was triggered after local labour unions collected one million signatures to protest against Governor Walker's fiscal austerity programme which slashed pension benefits and other entitlements and successfully healed a $3.8bn (£2.5bn) projected shortfall in the state budget.
Mr Romney, recently confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee, said the result in Wisconsin would "echo beyond the borders" of the state which was won comfortably by 14 points by Mr Obama in 2008 but was now "in play", according to Republican strategists.
"Tonight voters said 'no' to the tired, liberal ideas of yesterday, and 'yes' to fiscal responsibility and a new direction," said Mr Romney, setting out the ideological divide on the economy that is shaping the debate in the run-up to November's general election.
Addressing dozens of cheering supporters in Waukesha, Governor Walker, who is fast becoming a hero of the Republican right, said his triumph showed how voters crave a leader who can "stand up and make the tough decisions".
Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008, said the Wisconsin vote was a ringing endorsement of Conservative economic austerity medicine, which she contrasted with Democrat plans to increase government spending and investment.
"It's good for the entire country because people are going to recognize, through Governor Walker's efforts, that austerity measures, responsible austerity measures of reining in government growth, really will help our nation as a whole with the economic woes that we face," she said on Fox News.
Reince Priebus, the chair of Republican National Committee, said the Democrat defeat was "an absolute disaster" for President Obama and a vindication of the Republican party grass-roots' ability to energise voters.
"After yesterday's victory, Republicans have the infrastructure and enthusiasm that will help us defeat President Obama in Wisconsin, he wrote in a campaign memo, "In that respect, it was a great 'dry run'." Republicans also taunted Mr Obama for failing to campaign in person in Wisconsin after polls last week showed that Democrats were likely to lose the vote, confining his support to single tweet endorsing the Democrat candidate.
"Wisconsin Democrats will now look to President Obama and ask, "Why did you abandon us?"," asked Mr Priebus, adding gleefully, "Let the in-fighting begin." While Republicans tried to generate maximum momentum from the Wisconsin result, Democrats sought comfort in exit polls that showed voters saying they would support Mr Obama over Mr Romney by 9 points, according to a ABC News.
David Axelrod, senior strategist in the Obama campaign said the polls "raised big questions" for Mr Romney, a relative moderate and stilted campaigner who has failed to capture the imagination of the Republican grass-roots in the manner of Governor Walker.
They also pointed to the vast gap in funding, driven by out-of-state contributions from big ticket Republican donors, which saw Governor Walker outs-spending his Democrat opponent Tom Barrett by almost 8 to 1 – a situation that will not be replicated nationally in November.
Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, played down the significance of the Republican win, saying he "wouldn't read much into" the result.
"What you had was an incumbent governor in a repeat election that he had won once, in which he outspent his challenger by a magnitude of seven or eight to one with an enormous amount of outside corporate money and huge donations," he added Citing the favourable exit polls, Tripp Wellde, the Democrat campaign director in Wisconsin, said he also expected a different result come in the autumn.
"President Obama again held a strong advantage over Romney. These data points clearly demonstrate a very steep pathway for Mitt Romney to recover in the state," he said.
No comments:
Write comments