Romney victories mask lingering questions about his candidacy

Mitt Romney's twin victories Saturday in Maine and in a conservative straw poll were badly needed bright spots for his campaign at the end of what was perhaps the most humbling week of his presidential candidacy, a five-day stretch that exposed the former Massachusetts governor's frail relationship with conservatives.

One day after dubbing himself a "severely conservative Republican" in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Romney won a presidential straw poll of conference-goers with 38% of the vote to Rick Santorum's 31%.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul trailed in the distance.

Just hours later, Romney narrowly defeated Paul to win the Maine caucuses, a nonbinding contest in which fewer than 6,000 voters participated.

But if the talk the among conservative activists at CPAC was any indication of what's to come as the Republican race moves into a national phase, Romney's wins Saturday may do little to halt lingering questions about his core convictions or bridge the deepening rift between the party's insurgent and establishment factions.

Santorum supporters were nearly apoplectic in the moments after the CPAC straw poll results were announced, accusing Romney of lying about his conservative record in the conference's main ballroom just 24 hours earlier.

"You repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth," said Justin Wight, a political consultant based in Asheville, North Carolina. "That is the Mitt Romney campaign for president of the United States right there."

Judd Saul, a tea party activist and Santorum backer who traveled to CPAC from Cedar Falls, Iowa, said the Republican establishment's fixation on Romney's electability against President Barack Obama is leading the party to an all-but-certain loss in November.

"It is a lie that none of the other candidates are electable," he said. "It is a flat lie. You know who gets to decide who is electable? The people decide. Not the media, not the pundits."

GOP battle lines hardening

Never mind that the straw poll data showed that a candidate's position on the issues was more important to CPAC voters than his chances of defeating Obama -- the battle lines in the Republican presidential race are hardening.

Romney's losses to Santorum in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado last Tuesday were nonbinding.

But the three states were laboratories of GOP sentiment largely untouched by the blizzard of television and radio ads that swamped airwaves in previous nominating states -- and Romney was firmly rejected by the conservative base in all three.

His stumbles provided Santorum and Gingrich a rationale to forge ahead to the next contests and embrace the hard-line grass-roots fury that has been roiling the GOP since 2009.

Santorum entered CPAC after several days campaigning in Texas, where he drew some of the largest crowds of his campaign.

"As conservatives and tea party folks, we are not just wings of the Republican Party," Santorum declared at CPAC, hours before Romney was set to speak. "We are the Republican Party."

For most of the Republican race, Romney steered clear of fiery talk and cautiously tried to convey an aura of inevitability, keeping the Republican base at arm's length while focusing his economy-themed attacks on the president.

For months, it worked.

In debates and campaign events throughout 2011 and in the early days of this year, Romney's past support for abortion rights and a health insurance mandate in Massachusetts largely escaped attention as the rest of the GOP candidates dueled with each other.

When Romney did come under fire, most directly in South Carolina from Gingrich, the central line of attack focused on his personal wealth and tax returns -- not his evolving positions on core conservative issues.