Suddenly Romney’s on the ropes

CHARLESTON, S.C. (MCT) — Put the champagne on ice. Hold the coronation.

Mitt Romney’s hopes of quickly clinching the Republican presidential nomination may be fading. He now finds himself facing a very tough fight with Newt Gingrich, a man he thought he’d buried back in Iowa.

Gingrich could stumble again, his personal flaws underscored anew Thursday when his second wife broke a long silence to tell how he wanted to have an open marriage so he could maintain an extramarital relationship with the woman who eventually became his third wife.

But Gingrich has risen from the political graveyard twice already this campaign, proving that he has enough presence, particularly in televised debates, to escape oblivion. And Romney this week is facing enough questions — about his wealth and taxes, about his support among conservatives, about his inevitability — that he looks ripe for a longer challenge.

All the bad news for Romney came to a head Thursday, as he huddled in a Charleston hotel preparing for an evening debate.

First, Romney found out that he did not win the Iowa caucuses after all.

The former governor of Massachusetts had come into South Carolina looking like the first non-incumbent ever to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney’s always planned for a coast-to-coast fight for the nomination — ala Barack Obama in 2008. But he hoped a win in South Carolina would give him an incredible three-state sweep and with it an aura of invincibility.

But the Iowa Republican Party announced Thursday that a closer check of the votes in the Jan. 3 precinct caucuses revealed that Romney did not eke out an eight-vote win over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, as initially reported. Rather, Santorum finished with 34 more votes than Romney.

Then Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the race Thursday, throwing his support to Gingrich.

Next, new polls revealed that Romney’s losing ground fast to the suddenly re-energized Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives. Just two days after holding a double-digit lead, Romney found himself neck and neck with Gingrich — and trailing in some surveys. Three out of four polls conducted through Wednesday evening and released Thursday showed Gingrich with an edge or outright lead over Romney.