South Carolina Raises Fresh Doubts About Republican Contest

Well, the doubts should be about the ease with which Romney held onto his frontrunner status for so long. The media is especially to blame, but I think Romney's rivals played softball way too long, afraid that they'd be crossed off the list of possible appointments in a Romney administration. Tim Pawlenty must be kicking himself every night for dropping out of the race so damned early.

At New York Times, "Fresh Doubts About Republican Contest":

CHARLESTON, S.C. — For Mitt Romney, the South Carolina primary was not just a defeat, though it was most emphatically that. It was also where his campaign confronted the prospect it had most hoped to avoid: a dominant, surging and energized rival.

The rebirth of Newt Gingrich, a notion that seemed far-fetched only weeks ago, has upended a litany of assumptions about this turbulent race. It wounds Mr. Romney, particularly given his stinging double-digit defeat here on Saturday, and raises the likelihood that the Republican contest could stretch into the springtime.

For now the race goes on, with Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney joined by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. But Mr. Gingrich’s showing here suggests that Mr. Romney may no longer be able to count on his rivals splitting the opposing vote into harmless parcels, or on the support he is getting from the party establishment to carry him past a volatile conservative grass-roots movement.

At a minimum, it is clear that Republican voters, after delivering three different winners in the first three stops in the nominating contest, are in no rush to settle on their nominee.

Mr. Romney, whose message has been built around the proposition that he can create jobs, lost badly among voters who said they were very worried about the economy, according to exit polls.

He had trouble with evangelicals and voters searching for a candidate who shared their faith. He did not win over people who support the Tea Party movement. And he struggled with questions about his wealth over the past week and could not match Mr. Gingrich in exciting the passions of conservatives.

His arguments of electability — the spine of his candidacy — fell flat to a wide portion of the party’s base here.

For all that, by most traditional measures, Mr. Romney retains a firm upper hand in the Republican race as it moves into a protracted battle to win 1,144 delegates.

Well, I don't know how "firm" that upper hand will be, considering the phenomenal bounce Gingrich will get coming out of South Carolina. But Romney's got the money and infrastructure, which I blogged about earlier. He needs to win Florida to recapture the momentum.

PREVIOUSLY: "Romney's National Campaign Operation Will Be Hard to Overcome."