Super Tuesday billed as ‘life or death for America’

Today is the single biggest day of the Republican presidential campaign — or, as Newt Gingrich’s political action committee put it last night, the event that could represent “life or death to America as we know and love it”.

Mitt Romney’s allies are hoping Super Tuesday’s powerful imprint on the Republican presidential nomination will bring clarity, at long last, to the fractious contest and rouse Republicans behind their frontrunner.

Romney and chief rival Rick Santorum scrambled for any advantage they could find in Ohio, the most-watched contest in the 10-state extravaganza stretching from Alaska to the south-east.