Republican Rivals Batter Romney in South Carolina

By JIM RUTENBERG and JEFF ZELENY
NYT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — For the Republican presidential candidates who want to stop Mitt Romney in South Carolina, it comes down to this: How far are they willing to go?

A day after Mr. Romney’s victory in New Hampshire left his rivals running out of time to block his path to the nomination, he was greeted here by a wave of attacks on his business record, his past support for abortion rights and his character.

With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and their allies sought to portray Mr. Romney as insufficiently steadfast in his conservatism in this very conservative state, threatening a scorched-earth approach to the primary to be held here on Jan. 21.

But there were some signs that a pressure campaign from the party establishment — encouraged and to some degree organized by pro-Romney forces — was forcing his rivals to recalibrate if not rethink the attacks. A growing chorus of high-profile Republicans criticized the attacks on Mr. Romney’s earlier career buying and selling companies as Democratic talking points.

(More here.)