Friday, February 03, 2012
Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, struggling to recover from remarks that critics said showed indifference to America’s poor, yesterday won the endorsement of real estate mogul Donald Trump.
Trump, who has said he is worth perhaps as much as $7 billion and is himself an on-again/off-again Republican presidential candidate and former member of the party, said he would back Romney in the race for the nomination to oppose President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.
"Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp," Trump said at a news conference at his Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Romney and his wife, Ann, standing to his right. "He’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen in this country we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it."
Trump’s support could backfire on Romney, a day after the wealthy former private equity executive gave a clumsy reminder of the challenges he faces winning over voters hit by the economic downturn and convincing them he can relate to their problems.
"I’m not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there," Romney said Wednesday on CNN, adding, "If it needs repair, I’ll fix it."
Trump said he got to know the former Massachusetts governor during recent conversations and said he was won over by Romney’s strong performance in Florida.
Trump seems an unlikely choice for Republican kingmaker. But the casino owner is popular in Nevada, and from the Romney team’s perspective it is better to have him with them than against them.
Nevada’s caucuses tomorrow are the next contest in the state-by-state process of choosing a Republican nominee.
Romney has won two of the first four states, taking primaries in New Hampshire and Florida by healthy margins. Newt Gingrich won South Carolina’s primary, and former US senator Rick Santorum won Iowa’s caucuses by a narrow margin over Romney.
— Reuters
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