* Romney wins in Wisconsin, Maryland, Washington, D.C.
* He strengthens grip on Republican U.S. presidential race
* Sweep increases pressure on rival Santorum to quit race
* Obama jumps into the fight
(Adds analyst comment)
By Steve Holland
MILWAUKEE, April 3 (Reuters) – Mitt Romney made a big leap
toward winning the Republican U.S. presidential nomination with
a clean sweep of three primaries on Tuesday that handed a
stinging defeat to chief rival Rick Santorum.
The victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
will increase appeals from Republican party leaders for Santorum
to quit so that Romney can gird for a difficult fight against
President Barack Obama in the Nov. 6 election.
In his victory speech in Milwaukee, Romney ignored Santorum
and gave voters a sense of what the general election campaign
will be like, sharply criticizing Obama for his handling of the
U.S. economy and high gasoline prices.
“It’s enough to make you think that years of flying around
on Air Force One, surrounded by an adoring staff of true
believers telling you what a great job you are doing, well, that
might be enough to make you a little out of touch,” Romney said.
In a clear sign that Obama sees Romney as his chief obstacle
to re-election, the president singled him out by name and
criticized him in a speech with a sharp partisan tone on
Tuesday.
The trio of defeats puts conservative Santorum’s campaign in
serious trouble. He is badly trailing Romney in both delegates
and fundraising.
“I think it’s lights out for Santorum,” said Republican
strategist Ron Bonjean. “He can run a sideshow campaign for the
next couple of months, but the spotlight is shining on Romney.”
Santorum, a former Senator, vowed to stay in the race at
least until April 24 when his home state of Pennsylvania votes
and where he is hanging on to a lead in the polls over Romney.
PENNSYLVANIA KNOCKOUT?
That date looms as a potentially decisive one, with Romney
likely to win five states that hold contests then and planning a
big challenge to Santorum in Pennsylvania.
Tuesday’s victories widened Romney’s lead over Santorum in
delegates to an estimated 640-264, according to CNN. Romney now
has more than half of the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the
nomination at the Republican convention in August.
Santorum wants to win enough delegates to deny his opponent
an outright victory before the convention in Tampa.
“Who’s ready to charge out of the locker room in
Pennsylvania for a strong second half?” Santorum said to cheers
in a speech after Tuesday’s result. “This isn’t half time. We’re
hitting the field. The clock starts tonight.”
“We don’t win by moving to the middle. We win by getting
people in the middle to move to us and move this country
forward,” Santorum said.
A Quinnipiac University poll showed Santorum ahead of Romney
in Pennsylvania by 41 to 35 percent, but the former private
equity executive’s campaign and its allies are likely to spend
big on negative ads against Santorum in the coming weeks.
Obama hit out at Romney on Tuesday for backing a
controversial Republican budget plan authored by a key Wisconsin
backer of Romney, Congressman Paul Ryan.
“He said that he’s very supportive of this new budget and he
even called it ‘marvelous,’ which is a word you don’t often hear
when it comes to describing a budget,” Obama said in a speech.
Romney fired back that Obama was trying to deflect blame for
high gasoline prices that are hitting American wallets hard and
could make Obama’s re-election tougher to achieve.
“So the president put an ad out yesterday, talking about
gasoline prices and how high they are. And guess who he blamed?
Me!” Romney said in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
“Maybe after I’m president I can take responsibility for
things I might have done wrong. But this president doesn’t want
to take responsibility for his mistakes.”
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Sam Youngman, Deborah
Charles and Lily Kuo; Editing by Alistair Bell and David
Brunnstrom)
