Unpredictable Election Contest Moves into Final Stages as Republicans Hopefuls Gather For CPAC | Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

White House hopefuls head to conservative confab

Stung by losses to religious conservative Rick Santorum this week in three voting contests, Romney must court the core faithful who carry heavy political weight but have given little love to his 2012 White House campaign to oust President Barack Obama.

Few if any lawmakers streaming through the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) were even mentioning Romney or the other three candidates by name as they addressed some 10,000 politicos and sought to focus their energies on a battle plan to thwart Obama’s bid for a second term.

But some attendees and high-profile members of Congress sounded notes of concern that the race for the Republican nomination could drag on all the way to the party’s convention in Tampa, Florida in late August.

“It’s interesting to see the conservative base is pretty divided between all four of them,” Republican Senator Jim DeMint told AFP after addressing the conference.

As for Romney and what he must do to earn the trust of core conservatives, DeMint demurred. “I think he’ll figure it out,” he said. “They’ll all get it together.”

Written off only a few weeks ago, Santorum won contests on Tuesday in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri — the latest turnaround in the volatile race to pick a candidate to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in November.