First Tuesdays Strategies

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) – Mitt Romney has added two veteran Republican operatives to his small team in South Carolina as the state’s primary nears.

And a super PAC backing Romney’s presidential bid is now running television ads in the Palmetto State attacking the immigration stances of Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, two candidates who hope their southern roots help them appeal to South Carolina voters.

In a sign of their increasing confidence across the early state playing field, the Romney campaign has signed up Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars to help run political operations in the state before the January 21 primary.

Tompkins told CNN Friday that they are both serving as advisers in a volunteer capacity.

“Right now I want to help, and they wanted our help, and we’re going to do whatever we can do to help them out,” said Tompkins, who said he traveled to Boston in November to meet with Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.

Both Republicans worked for Romney’s fruitless 2008 effort in South Carolina. Byars is also a longtime adviser to Sen. Jim DeMint.

They join Romney’s South Carolina state director, David Raad.

The staff hires were first reported by The State newspaper in Columbia.

Unlike the vast and expensive campaign operation he ran in South Carolina in 2008, Romney currently has just four paid staffers and one office in the state, which holds the first southern primary and has a tradition of accurately picking Republican presidential nominees.

But Romney and his team are betting that momentum, a flurry of television ads and a recent endorsement from Gov. Nikki Haley might be enough for a South Carolina win in a fractured Republican field.

The Romney campaign is currently running television ads in some of the state’s media markets.

They were joined this week by the super PAC, Restore Our Future, which is now airing a television ad in the state called “Too Much.” The ad is already running in Iowa.

The 30-second spot accuses Perry and Gingrich of favoring lenient policies for illegal immigrants and claims both candidates have “too much baggage on ethics.”

CNN.com
Peter Hamby & Shawna Shepherd
December 30, 2011

Warren Tompkins, Luke Byars say they will work on volunteer basis for next three weeks

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has hired veteran S.C. political consultants Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars to help boost his presence in South Carolina in the three weeks leading up to the state’s pivotal primary.

Tompkins has guided four candidates to wins in South Carolina’s Republican primary, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Byars is a former executive director of the S.C. Republican Party and a state director for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

Tompkins and Byars, known as First Tuesday Strategies, say they will not be paid for their work. Both of them worked for Romney in the 2008 election, when the former governor of Massachusetts finished a disappointing fourth after spending millions of dollars campaigning in South Carolina.

The two flirted with several presidential campaigns early in the election cycle, but did not sign on with anyone. They followed the example of DeMint, their biggest client, who said he does not plan to endorse a candidate.

“Sometimes it’s not always about money, but doing what you think is right and what is best for the things you believe in,” Tompkins said.

Romney has frustrated some conservatives for what they see as flip-flopping on key social issues, including abortion and gay marriage. Tompkins said there are other conservatives candidates, but Romney is the only candidate that can address the country’s troubled economy, which Tompkins said takes precedence.

“People need to vote with their head, not necessarily with their heart,” Tompkins said. “If we don’t straighten out America’s financial mess, all of the other stuff we care about on a social basis won’t matter.”

The move signals the start of Romney’s South Carolina attack, which has so far been quiet. Romney has just one office in the state, in West Columbia, and only three paid staffers. But his supporters, including state Rep. Phyllis Henderson, R-Greenville, have said Romney plans to pick up the pace in South Carolina following the Iowa caucuses. Restore Our Future, a super PAC that supports Romney, has already purchased $250,000 wroth of air time in South Carolina and Florida, according to reports.

The State Newspaper
Adam Beam
December 30, 2011

South Carolina Republicans are not letting what’s said in Vegas stay in Vegas when it comes to the nation’s nuclear waste.

During a Tuesday debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Ron Paul and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney all said they oppose using the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada.

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been temporarily storing and processing nuclear waste. State leaders fear that without the Yucca site, South Carolina will get stuck with the waste indefinitely. Republicans in early-voting South Carolina claim the Obama administration’s moves to scuttle the Yucca Mountain project are aimed at benefiting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

In the debate, Paul said the nuclear waste site was a state rights issue. “And then we get involved with which state’s going to get stuck with the garbage,” Paul said.

Romney agreed. “The idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, ‘We want to give you our nuclear waste,’ doesn’t make a lot of sense.” He said Nevadans should be offered a good deal on taking the waste “as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat.”

In a rough-and-tumble debate, it was one of the few points where Perry agreed with Romney. “But on this one, he’s hit it, the nail, right on the head,” Perry said.

Luke Byars, a Columbia political adviser unaffiliated with any presidential campaign, said those positions won’t go unnoticed and now will have to be explained. “In South Carolina, there may not be a whole lot we’re united on, but Yucca Mountain? That’s something we’re all united on,” Byars said.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a prepared statement that the “decision to close Yucca Mountain was a political, not a scientific, decision. … Failing to open Yucca Mountain creates real problems for states like South Carolina. I believe it’s a mistake for the Republican Party to buy into the political answer like President Obama did. We should stick to the science.”

South Carolina utility customers have put more than $1 billion into a trust fund to set up a permanent waste site, including decades of material generated at the Savannah River Site for the nation’s nuclear weapons. The Savannah River Site is nearly half way through turning 37 million gallons of waste in 49 tanks into a glass form that is encased in stainless steel. Those containers were supposed to be shipped to Yucca Mountain for long-term storage.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina released a statement Thursday that said he is disappointed “to hear that some of the GOP Presidential hopefuls share Senator Harry Reid’s views on Yucca Mountain. … I suspect many South Carolina voters, including myself, will expect to hear the presidential candidates’ solution to this problem during their next visit to the Palmetto State.”

Former Gov. Mark Sanford said the Obama administration reversed course on three decades of bipartisan work that would have relieved the Savannah River Site of some of its role. “It’s a mistake to drive national policy by the geography of a debate site or a campaign event,” Sanford said.

In 2010, Sanford held a news conference blistering the Obama administration on Yucca. He was flanked by GOP candidates vying to succeed him, including now-Gov. Nikki Haley

Haley stopped short of criticizing the candidates, but said the promise made to find a new home for the waste needs to be kept. “You can’t take our money and make us keep our waste. That’s just the worst of a bad deal,” Haley said. “It’s something that I’m going to continue to yell about until they either take it or give us our money back.”

If the candidates “are now going to make excuses about Yucca Mountain, it’s got to go somewhere and we can’t wait for them to figure out where it’s going to go,” Haley said. South Carolina voters “are going to want to know what their answers are to that.”

The State
Jim Davenport
October 20, 2011

At GOP forum in Columbia, Romney hits Obama’s health plan; Bachmann rips labor unions; Paul calls for far less government

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who as Massachusetts governor ushered in a state health care system that required residents to have insurance coverage, says his first task if elected would be to let states opt out of President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan.

“That’ll be one of my best assets if I get to debate President Obama,” Romney said of his stance on health care during a GOP presidential forum Monday in Columbia. He said his plan impacted only 8 percent of people in his home state, not all Americans as Obama’s plan eventually would do.

“(Obama health care reform) has got to be stopped,” he added, “and I know it better than most.”

Vying to be the Tea Party favorite in a state increasingly known for its limited government/less taxes fervor, five leading GOP presidential contenders took to the stage, fielding questions from popular conservative U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and the American Principles Project, a nonprofit encouraging a political return to constitutional principles. (more…)