Texas primary will be ‘big day’ for Romney

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says he’s looking forward to clinching the Republican nomination for president today.

There are 152 delegates at stake in the Texas primary today. Romney is 68 delegates shy of the 1,144 he needs to become his party’s nominee for the White House. Romney says today will be a big day for him, and he’s “looking forward to the good news.”

Meanwhile, Romney promised Monday to maintain an American military “with no comparable power anywhere in the world.”

The likely Republican presidential nominee faced a San Diego crowd estimated at 5,000 in what was billed as a Memorial Day service paying tribute to the nation’s war dead, not a campaign rally..

Without naming his general-election rival Monday, Romney drew clear contrasts with President Barack Obama on the issue of defense.

The Democratic president has proposed reducing the size of the military after the end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq and plans to remove troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

“We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs,” Romney said outside the city’s Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. “The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world.”

A new Gallup survey found that veterans prefer Romney over Obama by a double-digit margin, 58 percent to 34 percent.