By TOM RAUM, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The long, grueling GOP primary race is over. Now comes a summertime lull the candidates could find just as difficult — not because the schedule is crowded but because it isn't.
It is four months until the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August. Democrats hold their convention a week later in Charlotte, N.C.
That's a long time to fill, with no votes that matter, no debates to draw national attention. Voters tend to hibernate politically from the end of the primary season to the start of the conventions.
That lull should be a bigger problem for Republican challenger Mitt Romney than for Democratic President Barack Obama. A challenger must keep stirring up enthusiasm if he hopes to oust an incumbent president.
Romney has to figure out how to make news as he raises money and rallies supporters. He'll also be busy fleshing out a national organization and wooing disaffected conservatives — at the same time he's courting independents and other voting blocs where polls show he trails Obama, such as among women, Hispanics and young voters.
He'll pick a running mate at some point, and that's sure to ignite a burst of attention.
But it's not always entirely positive — as Republican John McCain found in 2008 with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or as George H.W. Bush learned in 1988 after he picked Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle. So Romney may tread carefully in making his choice.
Obama, meanwhile, gets a lot of free coverage just from being president and doing things presidents do both domestically and internationally.
"The challenge is a tough one, especially for the non-incumbent," says longtime Republican consultant Ed Rogers. "There's a news hole to fill every day that's bigger than ever. So you've got to feed that. And if you don't, then you're vulnerable to being picked apart with gaffes becoming stories, becoming metaphors that become the narrative of your campaign."
Furthermore, for Romney "this is a vulnerable period where he's coming out of the primaries kind of scuffed up and doesn't have a general-election infrastructure yet," Rogers said.
But some worries lurk for Obama, too. The economic recovery remains fragile. If it gets stronger, that would clearly help Obama. But the reverse is also true. If the economy worsens, it could hurt the president's chances.
And with the suspense gone from the GOP race, attention recently has shifted to scandals at the General Services Administration and the Secret Service, both more likely to hurt Obama than Romney.
The Obama campaign has shifted into overdrive to try to redefine Romney before he has a chance to better define himself.
The White House and Obama's Chicago-based re-election campaign have been moving away from echoing earlier GOP criticism that Romney lacked a core set of beliefs. Now, they're trying to make sure neither Romney nor the public forgets things he said to win over conservatives, including declaring in a speech that he was "severely conservative."
By all accounts, he governed Massachusetts as a political moderate. But that's not stopping Team Obama from painting him as a right-wing extremist.
"Romney and (his) party have gone way off to the right," says Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod. "A lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate and know better, but they're in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right."
Romney is now the all-but-certain Republican nominee after his five-state sweep last Tuesday, and he has stepped up coordination with the Republican National Committee.
Newt Gingrich plans to suspend his campaign this week, leaving Texas Rep. Ron Paul the lone remaining Republican challenger to Romney. But Paul has few convention delegates.
Twenty-four more primaries and state conventions are scheduled through July 14, including delegate-rich contests in Texas on May 29, and in California and New Jersey on June 5. But they're basically cleanup exercises for Romney, who is now fewer than 300 delegates from the 1,144 needed to secure the nomination. He could get them by late May.
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