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Romney Builds Elaborate Super Tuesday Strategy

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By MICHAEL LUO, The New York Times

Published: February 2, 2008

DENVER - After devoting two years and more than $35 million of his own money trying to win his party's nomination for the presidency, Mitt Romney and his advisers face the possibility that his effort could end with the nominating contests Tuesday.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona has won a series of major primaries and landed big-name endorsements as he seeks to present himself as the Republican Party's putative nominee.

Operating in survival mode, Romney's circle of advisers has come up with a detailed road map to try to salvage his campaign. The plan is complete with a new infusion of cash from Romney, a long-term strategy intended to turn the campaign into a protracted delegate fight and a reframing of the race as a one-on-one battle for the future of the party that seeks to sound the alarm among conservatives about McCain.

The advisers have drawn up a list of states, dividing and ranking them into those considered relatively easy and inexpensive targets, along with a broader grouping of more costly battlegrounds where the advisers hope that Romney can be competitive.

Some states such as Arizona and Arkansas, the home states of McCain and Mike Huckabee, respectively, are largely written off.

The question is whether the planning, along with the campaign's one trump card, the candidate's vast wealth, can overcome the growing sense of inevitability that has begun to attach itself to McCain.

McCain Leads In Polls

Polls in many major primary states on Tuesday, including California, the linchpin of Romney's strategy, where he is spending $1.7 million on advertising, according to a rival campaign, show McCain with a comfortable lead. McCain also appears to hold significant edges in New York and New Jersey, winner-take-all states where many former backers of Rudolph Giuliani have joined the McCain camp.

The endorsement by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California boosts McCain there, and the national news media buzz contributes to the air of a coronation.

"I don't think anyone should write Mitt Romney's obituary yet," said Todd Harris, a political consultant who worked on Fred Thompson's campaign. "He can be a compelling candidate with a ton of money. But at some point if he's not winning, the entire rationale for his campaign becomes that he is a well-funded candidate who's not John McCain, and that's not enough."

Funeral Will Pause Campaign

Another unforeseen complication is the funeral today of Gordon B. Hinckley, late president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Salt Lake City. The funeral, taking Romney off the trail on the most important weekend of campaigning so far, will draw attention once again to Romney's Mormon faith.

His advisers point to some signs of hope in an election cycle in which conventional wisdom has often been turned upside down. They say they are starting to see a groundswell of opposition to McCain among conservative leaders, as well as at the grassroots, especially on talk radio.

The day after Romney's loss to McCain in Florida, his aides said, the campaign set a record for one-day online contributions, almost $400,000.

Romney's advisers are also convinced that their mantra on the economy and bringing change to Washington and the economy remains compelling.

The campaign's director of strategy, Alex Gage, sent a memorandum to supporters on Thursday that highlighted exit poll data from the previous nominating contests, saying just a few percentage points of support to Romney from conservatives would swing the nomination to him.

Besides California, the campaign has also bought airtime for commercials in other states as part of a "significant" buy, advisers said, although they declined to say where. A rival campaign also reported that Romney has bought nearly $350,000 in advertising time to run nationally on the Fox News Channel.

Campaign Looks To West

Alex Castellanos, a media strategist for Romney, said regardless of the delegate count, the winner in California would have the momentum to move on.

"California's the one to watch," Castellanos said.

Rob Stutzman, a senior adviser for the California campaign, said the Republican electorate there was traditionally quite conservative. Stutzman predicted that McCain would run into problems because of his moderate stance on illegal immigration.

"The immigration vulnerability is amplified in California for McCain," he said.

The Romney campaign has had four paid staff members in California since last summer and has been making calls throughout the state since the beginning of January, when absentee voting began.

The field operations are focused on congressional districts where it thinks that organization can have productive effects. The state is set up so that each district is worth the same number of delegates, no matter how many Republicans are in it. A small organizing effort could swing a district.

The Romney campaign is banking on winning Utah, with its heavy concentration of Mormons.

Beyond that, the campaign is also focused on picking off the handful of states holding caucuses or state conventions on Tuesday. The campaign says some minimal organization - it has had at least one paid worker in almost every Super Tuesday state since the fall - and spending can produce results. The states include Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

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