On Mitt Romney
TAMPA, Fla. -- Meet Newt Gingrich, the human Roman Candle.
Gingrich and Mitt Romney on Monday staggered to the end of a brutal
week of campaigning in Florida, one in which they took increasingly
nasty and personal shots at one another. But the day marked a new
level of angry and relentless attacks on Romney by Gingrich, the
former House speaker from Georgia.
From morning until the last of five events at the end of the day,
Gingrich branded Romney a liar and cheat, accusing him of suppressing
religious liberty and trying to "buy the election."
The strain of the nastiness showed on both men. Romney's voice was
hoarse as he spoke at his last of three events, in front of a few
thousand people at The Villages, a massive retirement community 90
minutes northeast of Tampa. But in a sign of growing confidence and
looseness as a candidate, Romney led the crowd in singing "America the
Beautiful," a tune he has mentioned on the campaign trail all month
without breaking into song.
Romney didn't mention Gingrich by name at his last event, after
mocking and dismissing him earlier in the day.
Gingrich, on the other hand, launched himself into the Romney
juggernaut with a level of fury and desperation certain to produce
uneasiness in the GOP for its poisonous tone. Gingrich has vowed to
carry his candidacy all the way to the GOP convention, but his actions
Monday bore a wildness that could call his campaign's longevity into
doubt.
Gingrich continued to harp on a charge that Romney, during his time as
Massachusetts governor, vetoed funds to expand the provision of kosher
food for Bay State retirees. Gingrich said Romney has a "lack of
concern for religious liberty."
"Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare," Gingrich
said, stretching the truth. And Gingrich also hit Romney for a 2005
decision as governor to require Roman Catholic hospitals to provide
emergency contraception, which many Catholics believe is a form of
abortion, to rape victims.
"You want a war on the Catholic church by Obama? Guess what: Romney
refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their
dealing with certain circumstances," Gingrich said.
Having called Romney "pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase"
on Sunday, Gingrich added the title "pro-gay rights" on Monday, in an
acidic interview with Fox News. He rewound his last few days of
attacks, combining all of his insults and all his vitriol into a
string of remarkable assaults on Romney.
"The conservative movement is not going to sit back and say, 'Oh yes,
let's let Wall Street and Mitt Romney buy the election,'" Gingrich
said. "So you're going to see a real grassroots fight. It will be
people power vs. Goldman Sachs and Mitt Romney."
Gingrich's campaign began the day by sending out a press release
noting that Romney has received $367,000 in campaign contributions
from Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank.
"Goldman Sachs received $10 billion in emergency loans and bailouts
from the Federal Reserve during the Wall Street bailout," wrote
Gingrich's communications director Joe DeSantis. "This raises the
question: Are Mitt Romney's dishonest attack ads against Speaker
Gingrich being indirectly funded by the US taxpayer while Governor
Romney uses shady accounting gimmicks to avoid paying his fair share
of taxes?"
Gingrich went after discrepancies on Romney's tax returns as well.
"How can a guy who's a great manager not file 23 foreign holdings last
year when he filed?" Gingrich asked reporters in an unannounced press
scrum. "There are a lot of pieces of Mitt Romney that don't hold up
once you start looking at them honestly."
From a stage a few minutes later, Gingrich raged against the Romney
campaign's systematic dismantling of his momentum in the week since
his win in South Carolina 10 days ago.
"The New York Times has now reported that the Sunday after South
Carolina, the Romney team got together and said, 'Look, we need to
destroy Gingrich or we can't win.' So they've now spent $17.5 million
on falsehoods," Gingrich said, overstating by $2 million the amount
that Romney's campaign and a super PAC supporting him have spent.
Nonetheless, Gingrich and his allies have been outspent 4 to 1.
A spokesman for a super PAC supporting Gingrich, Winning Our Future,
amplified Gingrich's attacks with vicious jabs at Romney.
"Romney has proved to be a disgraceful and despicable candidate. He
has no character," Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide, said of Romney.
Romney, who has criticized Gingrich this week directly, did not engage
him head-on, dismissing Gingrich as desperate.
"I know the speaker's not real happy, Speaker Gingrich," Romney told a
crowd of hundreds at a park in Dunedin. "He's not feeling very excited
these days. I know, it's sad, right? He's flailing around trying to go
after me for one thing or the other and you just watch it and you
shake your head."
Gingrich tried to fight off the impression he was headed for a drubbing Tuesday.
"The polls are all over the place. We just got word of a brand new
poll that came out about an hour ago that says we're now tied 35-35,"
Gingrich told a crowd of about 200 in a Tampa air hangar.
The crowd went nuts. The problem was, the poll was nearly a week old,
not an hour. It was conducted last Monday to Wednesday, and released
on Friday. Every other poll during the last week has shown Romney far
ahead of Gingrich, many by double-digits.
Gingrich has vowed to stay in the race all the way to August, and to
take his fight against Romney to the Republican convention, in Tampa
from Aug. 27 to Aug. 30.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment