Romney looks to big win in Obama’s home state

White House hopeful Mitt Romney is looking for a big win in President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois to knock his Republican rivals out of the race and focus his energies on the November vote. A resounding win in Illinois Tuesday — after capturing 88 percent of the vote Sunday in Puerto Rico — would provide powerful momentum for Romney ahead of Louisiana’s primary Saturday. “Mitt Romney is headed for a blowout victory in Illinois,” Public Policy Polling said Monday releasing a survey that showed Romney with a 15-point lead over his conservative rival Rick Santorum. The former Massachusetts governor also has a commanding lead in the all-important delegate count with 1,144 needed to win the party’s nomination. But as he slogs through a grueling state-by-state primary race, he has been weakened by his failure to convince the conservative base that he should be the Republican contender to take on Obama on November 6. Written off in the early days, Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, has steadily notched up wins — 10 out of the past 31 contests — largely with the help of evangelicals and the party’s most conservative members. The Romney campaign is hoping however that upcoming contests in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC on April 3, as well as a slew of votes in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island later in April will firm up his position. Santorum’s campaign has been urging former House speaker Newt Gingrich — who has only won two contests — to drop out of the race in order to consolidate the conservative vote. Santorum insists that a “true conservative” is needed to rally the party’s base and dismisses fears his positions are too extreme and could turn off moderate Republicans and key independent voters. On Monday he was drawing inspiration from conservative icon, late president Ronald Reagan. “I encourage you to look back at the press reports about how out of step Ronald Reagan was and he was too conservative to win and, you know, he has to soften his message,” Santorum told Fox News Monday. “And Reagan stood up and articulated a clear conviction about who we are as Americans and Americans were drawn to it.” He also hit out at criticism from Romney that he was an “economic lightweight.” “If I’m a lightweight, I agree, he is a heavyweight. He is a big government heavyweight. That’s what his record was,” Santorum said, arguing that as governor Romney had also failed to create jobs. The four Republican contenders are trying to reach the 1,144 delegates to lock up the nomination, with the winner to be crowned at the party convention in Tampa in August. About halfway through the race, Romney has pocketed 516 delegates, while Santorum is on 236 and Gingrich 141, according to the website Real Clear Politics. Libertarian congressman Ron Paul has about 66. Illinois and Louisiana between them have more than 110 delegates up for grabs, while by the end of April another 320 or so will have been decided — many of them in states where the winner takes all. Should Romney do well in the more liberal east coast states as expected, he could well be in an unstoppable position mathematically by the end of next month. Meanwhile, in national polls Obama held a six-point lead over Santorum while he was in a statistical tie over Romney, according to Rasmussen polling center. The Obama campaign meanwhile said Monday he had raised more than $45 million in February to fund his bid for a second White House term. Obama’s combined take for his campaign and the Democratic Party was higher than the $29 million he raised in January, but short of the $55 million he pulled in during February 2008, during a fierce battle for his party’s nomination with Hillary Clinton. But the February 2012 total announced by his campaign beat the $11.5 million dollars raised by Romney in the same month. Republicans immediately said Obama’s lag between 2008 and 2012 fundraising was a sign Americans were uncertain about giving him a new four-year term. But Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt hit back, saying the president was building a long-term campaign structure, not simply splashing cash on taking television advertisements slamming opponents from their own party. “The $ the (Republican) candidates are raising will be spent on the air carpetbombing each other. We are raising $ for our gen elect infrastructure,” LaBolt said on Twitter.