Republican candidates turn to high risk tactics

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=UC2CVFKC5TJ03QFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/11/wuspols211.xml

In the Republican Party's most open race for decades, candidates are turning to high-risk survival tactics to keep their hopes alive of winning the presidential nomination.

Too weak to compete realistically in primaries being held over the next week, most frontrunners are concentrating resources in states where they hope to score decisive victories, but where defeat could spell the end.

Mitt Romney, the venture capitalist and former Massachusetts governor, has dropped his television advertising from South Carolina, which holds its primary in January 19, and Florida, which polls a week later. Having come second in Iowa and New Hampshire despite spending millions and leading polls in both states for months, he has been forced to pin his hopes on winning on Tuesday in Michigan, where his late father was governor.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, having abandoned the first two states, is barely campaigning in Michigan or South Carolina, holding his fire for Florida on January 29.