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SPARTANBURG, SC -- Mitt Romney's campaign launched a barrage of attacks against Newt Gingrich just three days before South Carolina's primary amid signs the former House speaker could threaten Romney's bid for his third straight win in the primary cycle.
The former Massachusetts governor led his campaign in opening a fusillade against Gingrich, who's persisted at or near the top of the polls in tests of Saturday's first-in-the-South primary.
In a sign of how seriously his campaign is taking Gingrich as a threat, Romney broke from his usual form on the campaign trail -- which usually involves attacking only President Obama -- to instead deliver a rebuke of Gingrich's claims on his record on job creation.
"The speaker the other day at the debate was talking about how he created millions of jobs when he was working with the Reagan administration. Well, he'd been in Congress two years when Ronald Reagan came into office, " Romney said. "That'd be like saying 435 congressmen were all responsible for those jobs. Government doesn't create jobs. It's the private sector that creates jobs. Congressmen taking responsibility or taking credit for helping create jobs is like Al Gore taking credit for the Internet."
Romney's words were just one part of an offensive that extended to his surrogates, who hosted a conference call and launched web videos questioning Gingrich's leadership abilities.
First Thoughts: Newt-mentum returns?
The assault began earlier this morning with a web video released by the Romney campaign entitled "Undisciplined Leader," in which former New York Rep. Susan Molinari, who served with Gingrich in the 1990s, delivered the first blow.
"I served with Newt Gingrich in Congress. Newt Gingrich had a leadership style that can only be described as leadership by chaos,” Molinari said in the video. "I worry about the Republican Party’s chances to defeat President Obama if Newt Gingrich is the nominee."
On a conference call with reporters later in the morning, former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, another Romney supporter, continued the attack, and warned that if Gingrich were to become the Republican nominee it would hurt the party.
"Each one of us [who served with Gingrich] has personal stories we can tell about going home and having to clean up after our speaker," Talent said. "It had an impact on the 1996 presidential election and, if he's the nominee, it will have an impact on the 2012 election and the impact's not going to be good for the conservative movement and the Republican Party."
If this all sounds familiar, it might be because the Romney campaign employed the exact same tactics following the first surge in the polls Gingrich had enjoyed in Iowa in early December. At that time, Talent and Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu lanced Gingrich for "off-the-cuff thinking" and "irrational behavior" on a similar conference call, with Sununu continuing to voice the attacks for days in interviews on television and in print.
Related: Santorum targets Gingrich in S.C. stumping
It now appears those attacks may continue. Today, the Romney campaign confirmed reports that Sununu will travel to South Carolina on Thursday to campaign for Romney.
This afternoon, the Gingrich campaign responded to Romney's comments on job creation.
""I fully expect the Romney campaign to be unendingly dirty and dishonest for the next 4 days because they are desperate, they thought they could buy this. They discovered that they can't buy this. I think they have internal polling that shows them loosing. I think they will do anything to try at any level and I need your help. People power will be money power. And I need your help," the candidate said at a town hall meeting.
"If your curious of what kind of leadership style Romney would use as president, today we are seeing what panic looks like," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told NBC News.
NBC'S Alex Moe contributed to this report.
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It’s refreshing to see that there is a Republican who upsets the Rhino machine so much. All of their complaints are a shining endorsement for Gingrich.
The GOP has dropped the political savvy ball ever since GW Bush was elected. His advisers said "PR"* and Bush said “You mean like meow”(*purr). He just didn’t get it.
The record has yet to be set straight as to who dodged, block, evaded and intercepted all Freddie and Fannie corrections. It was Barney Frank and company.
To date most of the public doesn’t know that GW Bush sent his people to the hill to warn of the impending crises if the mortgage industry is not reigned in. Then they were sent back to WH meetings with their tails between their legs liked whipped puppies.
The Rhino machine is just cowards on the payroll while their opposition is on the take. GOPErs too gutless to open their mouths thinking someone will call them racist, children haters and elderly oppressors. IDIOCY, they are going to do that anyway!!! The republicans are so disconnected that they lack the ability to connect the dots back to the real culprit and enemies of the poverty stricken. It’s undeniably, the Hollywood trained Democrats!!!
With all the obvious evidence, to impugn the liberals for what they caused, I knew McCain had the fortitude to set the record straight. After all, my 7 year old knows how to pull the Frank, Waters, Boxer, Raines…..etc videos to hear them impugn their selves. But, McCain dare not rock the boat either. The Dems used the last presidential campaign to ride piggyback, a half year long commercial to solidify the republicans are still to blame.
Even today, John Boehner and company continue to drop the PR ball. They give only one rebuttal for every 40 obama camp presentations. Sure Boehner and the HOR gave Obama what he wanted. Then Harry Reid was able to back 10 months off it while declaring the GOP enemies of the middle class. Oh CRAP!!! Drop some bubble gum and pass the KY. The Dems are sticking it to em. And all McConnel, Cantor can do is respond like big bird. Where’s the damn anger?
What’s going on? Freaking Pee Wee Herman would raise more hell. Is Boehner is just too lazy to get up off his comfortable ass to raise the roof on this? He has an unmatched public speaking skill set, yet he sits in stone cold silence. He throws water just once on the perpetual fires of liberal spin.
It’s obvious to me the Rhino endorsements lining up for Romney proves he will be just another “don’t rock the boat” coward once he’s in office.
The fact that they don’t like Gingrich speak volumes as to why we need this kind of courage in the President’s seat. To damn bad they can’t come to the aid of Boehner and have the same volume they are turning up against Gingrich.
Folks, we are at a final cross road of this great bastion of hope. If we loose this, it's over. With all that said, ask yourself, "Do we want a Mister Rodgers debating Obama or a Winston Chruchhill?"
Newt 2012!!!
That was funny,, Newt still can't paint over his own bad record
The world is revolving into a revolution in 2012.
Another sexual revolution? Count me in, I like free stuff
You are probably right about a revolution. All of the unwanted babies that were not allowed to be aborted are now on the streets fully armed due to the ease of obtaining weapons. They are ready to overthrow the radical right wing cracked teanuts and their leader Groper Nutquist.
Babies are taking up arms,,, Conservative policies are starving them from opportunities & poisoning their milk
So Mitt, if government does not create jobs, we sure don't need you running government (of course if government does create jobs, we don't need you running it, because you don't believe government creates jobs).
tru enuf
Govt does not create jobs but it can and does under this president hinder the atmosphere for the private sector to. Too much regulation, higher fees, higher taxes all created by the govt has decreased the oppotunity for the last three years. He just turned down the Keystone pipline that would created many thousand of good paying jobs for Americans.
Newt while house speaker helped create an atmoshere where the private sector could and did create those jobs.
"Government does not create jobs" is taken right out of Herbert Hoover's mouth in 1930 at the onset of the Great Depression. FDR was elected in 1932 and showed the world that government can and did save an economy by regulating Wall Street, putting people to work and raising tax rates on the wealthy to pay for those jobs. History always repeats itself.
tru, I agree that a lot of jobs were created while Newt was Speaker. In fact, an entire industry exploded onto the scene during those years. It was called hi-tech and the internet, a marvel which was originally created by the Department of Defense with taxpayer money.
The pipe line is bad deal for the country to risky going through Nebraska!
Settersperch.
You wrote, "Too much regulation, higher fees, higher taxes all created by the govt has decreased the oppotunity for the last three years." Do you have any evidence to support this statement? I think not.
I have something that contradicts what you say, courtesy of an economist who was a senior advisor to both Reagan and Bush 1. Bruce Bartlett reviewed several surveys of businesses in America that had either fired workers or weren't hiring them back and concluded that neither high taxes nor uncertainty about governmental regulation have strongly affected private investment and the jobs it produced during Obama's presidency, http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/regulation-and-unemployment:
"Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today. And the Republicans’ oft-stated concern for the deficit makes tax cuts a hard sell.
These constraints have led Republicans to embrace the idea that government regulation is the principal factor holding back employment. They assert that Barack Obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulations, which has created uncertainty among businesses and prevents them from investing and hiring.
No hard evidence is offered for this claim; it is simply asserted as self-evident and repeated endlessly throughout the conservative echo chamber.
. . .
In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment." http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/regulation-and-unemployment/
That agenda is broadly called "neoliberalism" or "austere capitalism," as preached by former University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. When Reagan said, "Government isn't the solution to people's problems, it is the problem." While speaking in lofty terms of "freedom" and "liberty," when implemented, it has done one thing only--transferred wealth from a country's middle class to its upper class through deregulation, privatization of governmental activities, and of course, "trickle down." For 30 years, it's been used to transfer wealth here too.
Setters, stop listening to Teapublican corporate babble and repeating their endlessly stupid propaganda.
Michael,,, That was excellent, thank you
Michael--a very perceptive and provocative analysis. Such varied and repeated exposures of the unscrupulous rhetorical tactics of the Republican greed machine will be their undoing.
Come on these guys should be attacking the most corrupt and incompetent administration to ever hold the presidency. Solindra, Fast and Furious, "Amnesty" for 250,000 illegal El Salvadorians, an illegal alien uncle on trial for drunken driving, the appointment of a completely unqualified Supreme Court Justice (Elena Kagen had never sat on the bench of a single trial), TARP AKA the Wall Street bailout, Nancy Pelosi's insider trading with VISA etc etc etc.
Instead they argue over forms of contraception and which of them hates abortion more.
We are doomed to 4 more years of Obummer
romney doesnt have to do anything...the VAST majority of republicans will not vote for newt...period...they HATE him...so all romney has to do is let newt implode..the only people he impresses are the feeble minded..he attacks with no follow up...but since he is such an unkempt ugly POS...it comes across as foolish and narcissistic...the old guard GOP has seen this peacock act before...and it went no where...newt is toast...
Mitt has to show his tax records all the way back to when he started working for Bain Capital
I think there is a difference between earned income & investment income. Not sure what they call it, but therein lays the problem,,,, Loopholes & off shore income not taxable
He needs to show his tax records all the way back to when he worked for Bain Capital who held those off shore accounts
His income is from those offshore accounts,,, It's not earned income
Big problem is, it's legal as far as I know ---- Highly immoral & not very patriotic, but legal
Before anyone shouts "Socialist",, I'm a capitalist
Romney is cold hearted. Go to Youtube and search "Romney Meets Dying Medical Marijuana Patient". After you watch that then look at Ron Pauls views on the same subject.
Obama and team will be worse...On Mitt or Newt
Saint Ronald Reagan must be rolling over in his grave. Wasn't he the person who announced the 11th Amendment - Thou shalt not speak evil of another Republican?
Political cannibalism is fun to watch!
Reagan rolled over his grave when messiah Obama was elected as president...
Since this is a good time & we are discussing Newt & Romney, lets add another visual to the equation
Keystone creates only 6,000 temporary jobs & Obama's Clean Energy Initiatives create 68,000 permanent jobs
Newt & Romney? --- Oppose the creation of 68,000 jobs for America's Families & support higher oil prices it would take to make it profitable
sunshine you can't possibly believe what you just posted. I suggest you do real research on it and stop believing everything the lib media is feeding you.
This is the reality of the situation,,,, It's just not your reality settersperch
According to your conservative leaders, Obama is the cause of our economic collapse --- Actually,,, his polices stabilized our economy
It was conservative failures that put millions of American Families on the welfare rolls... Obama's policies created 3 years of steady but slow private sector growth
Jim
Well you got your avatar correct because you apparently are one loony tune
Setter, you just can't face the facts: you and your kind are doomed to smashing defeat in the 2012's.
Obama has miraculously saved us from the Bush Disater years and you can't face the facts.
Dumb.
Don't present facts to setters, it will just confuse him and he will have to watch the latest rush program for more answers.
Nothing that Jim post is ever reality. He is the perfect liberal (make it up as you go) hack...
He has frequent liars miles..
The Al Gore and the Internet thing is a favorite of the Repubs. I wish they would get their story straight. Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. He did make a statement that he was involved in creating the use of it while in the Senate, along with others. He is known for being unusually technically savvy for a politician. Savvy enough that he knows that no one person "invented" the Internet, including him.
But they love to drag it out whenever possible. Check out Snopes if you don't believe me. It was something of a self serving statement, but what he actually said was based in reality and is not what he was quoted at saying. If you want to quote dumb statements out of a president's mouth, there's a lifetime's worth from our last commander in chief. Oh, that's not as much fun, is it?
Rick, what is ironic is that the federal government did in fact invent the internet. Originally, the concept came from the Department of Defense which needed a fast and secure way to communicate with itself and its contractors - hence the internet. Kind of a nice rebuttal to Romney who claims government does not create jobs. You and I are using a creation of government to communicate that employs millions of Americans.
Actually you both are a little off because two collages are the ones who created the foundation of what we call the Internet when they also created the very first FAX. Go to school and take a course in basic computers and you might get a little more information than what google will tell you. I can't remember the name of them. I would need to go back into the books to look it up. But because of the speed of computers and the design of the modems at that time the Fax Machine was changed to the telephone interface to make the transmission work faster.
With the exception of our military men and women,all of the "Govt Employees" are overpaid,have ridiculously high pensions and dont do much "work."The most overpaid govt employees are those corrupt,scumbags called Congress.
When will the "dumbed down" American public start voting this trash out of office every four years? A 200+ passenger plane for a virtual moron like Nancy Pelosi? A current Speaker of the House claiming he doesnt have any idea where his personal $$$ are invested,Harry Reid has three sons and a son-in-law who are lobbyists (spelled "bagmen"in Brooklyn)?
It's over dummies.
Our veterans are also very concerned about this tax inequity between Elite Conservatives like Romney & the rest of our society.
A hell of a lot of government employees are our veterans
When will you smarten up? Nancy got a hell of a lot more done than Boehner & his House of Misrepresentitives
Ron,,,, Pay attention --- It wasn't all that long ago conservatives in the GOP screamed that VA Benefits was welfare,,,
Conservative will continue to hurt them as they are now with this Keystone project denying the creation of 68,000 permanent jobs
Apparently Republicans didn't give much thought to veterans about treating their combat injuries- witness the horror stories concerning Walter Reed Hospital. It was the Obama Administration that brought that disaster to America's attention!
Bruce,,, I'll give some credit to Bush for helping the VA & at Walter Reed... Yes it was a long neglected hospital, however in spite of all the casualties sent there as a result of that administration, they did some good things
Hopefully none of the conservatives will get in. They are calling for more wars if one of them gets elected
It is amazing that the evangelical dunces that vote for the right wing radical cracked teanuts and repukes don't ask God to create jobs for the people he created. It should not be too hard. Next time a repuke sees Jesus, the next time he arises, he should ask him about it and to relay the information to his pappy. I guess if some of these nutcases happen to see a man with wings on flying overhead blowing a horn, that will be God's message that he is working on the problem.
God is too busy responding to Tebow who is on his knees more often than a two-bit lady of the night.
Doesn't look like Perry's Prayer Rally at Reliant Stadium did much good for Tebow, Perry or the state of Texas
""If your curious of what kind of leadership style Romney would use as president, today we are seeing what panic looks like," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told NBC News."
As illeterate as most of the commentators here: "Your" is a possessive, e.g., your dog.
What the author means, in English, is "You're", meaning you are . . . . .
Most of illiterates vote for Willard. He's a lyin' repuke.
Newt Gingrich is a closet Marxist disguised as a conservative. Can the electorate trust a politician who claims to hold conservative values when he employs a Marxist critique of Romney's work at Bain Capital? This is a Commie attack on free enterprise. Newt was also a big promoter of Medicare Part D, a huge unfunded entitlement program that was a payback to the major drug companies that had supported the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Approximately 61% of the prescription drug subsidy from the federal government is profit to drug companies! Not only is Newt a Marxist, he is a corrupt one at that!
Meaning "illiterate". . . .
Also, "of what kind of ..." must be "as to what . . . ."; not "curious of . . . "
"Curious about", perhaps, but never curious of ..."
No. I am talking about the ones that can't, read or write and sit out on their back porch chewing their Red Man and watching that their daddy's moonshine don't overcook. You know, the ones that back the right wing radical cracked teanuts.
Look. I dislike many of the radical right wing cracked teanuts and their evangelical backers as much as you do. But they are not Marxists. They are however, backed by Marxist type groups like the abortion clinic bombers, abortion doctor killers, federal building bombers, Baptists that protest at dead soldiers funerals and right wing radical southern anthrax spreaders.
Nut Gingerhead, howver, is right to bring out lyin Willard's Bain Capital's record.
Santorum won the Iowa Caucus.
Romney won the New Hampshire primary.
Newt, The south will rise again.
Don't hold anything back. You don't have anything to lose and everything to gain.
Romney is the same book as Obama with a different cover. Obama gets his policies from the Romney camp. In public they appear to be against each other but in private they are laughing at us.
The truth shall set you free and the lies will keep you on a ball and chain.
Seems to me conservatives didn't vote for any of those 3 to get reelected in their previous positions
Methinks you assume too much Jeffrey,, Maybe a problem with the Kool Aid?
Bugs I don't drink the Kool-Aid.
But me thinks you do. Johnny Pot Seed says "A joint a day keeps the doctor away."
Marijuana is not a drug. Drugs are man made. Try some Bugs, it might mellow you out. You don't have to smoke it, you can eat it too.
Jeffrey.... I got rid of my "ball & chain" when I got a divorce... Try it, you'll find "real freedom" & many new liberties
Nope,, No Kool aid or tea bags for me,,, Just carrot juice & coffee
It's obvious to see why Jim's wife divorced him. In fact, I bet she ran quickly away from him and left him crying like a whooped pup...
But it's all mute. Liberals don't take the sanctity of marriage serious any way...
And maybe Bugs can smoke it, but not inhale..
Nope, it was the other way around. After 25 years I simply wanted my freedom from a woman I should never have met,, I set her up in a good career first, she became a credit debt collector & a damn good one.. Unfortunately she gets half of my retirement --- Freedom isn't free
Hey Mitt, "clean-up your own back yard, before going after other, regardless who they are"!
Before to much longer it will be time for Buckwheat to start Badmouthing everyone, and blaming everyone"!
Romney #1: Government does not create jobs.
Romney #2: Elect me to head the government and I will create jobs.
Republicans: Unions are destroying America.
Dept. of Labor: Fewer than 16% of American workers belong to a union (which means 84% do not).
Republican: Tax rates are too high (31.5%).
Romney: I pay about 15% in taxes.
Historian: Top Tax Rate 1945 - 94%; Top Tax Rate 1952 (Eisenhower) - 92%
Anyone but lyin Willard (and Nut Gingerhead, Rick (secessionist) Perry, crazy old man Paul and the Pope's rules boy Santorum). I guess that means bringing back Herman (9Kampf) Cain the dress slitherer.
"Corporations are people, my friend" -- Mitt Romney to the Iowa State Fair
If corporations are a person than Whiskey Tango Foxtrot am I?
Just an employee owned by the corporation you work for
Your interests are far more varied & personally valuable than the interests of the corporation is, they are only interested in product & profit
Man you can't make this stuff up. read Jim's anti profit post. Can you image corporations actually working for profit. And can you imagine Jim the liberal hack actually thinks corporations should not produce products that make a profit...Now this my friends is what defines a liberal...
Too liberal hack Jim...Profit is bad...But, I'll bet you one thing, he doesn't give over his paycheck to the goverment he thinks deserves all corporate profit. He feels he earned it. The liberal hack Jim, the greedy selfish liberal actually thinks he should keep what he earns. Just not anyone else...
I'm a capitalist,, I'm not against profit... Just how it's gotten & who loses as a result
It's not "earnings" look it up, there is a big difference
If I vote for Romney, do I get to look at the golden tablets?
You won't even get a look at his "Golden Parachute"
Go to it guys, knock one another out, Romney, Newt or Santorum, Obama will win this race no matter who's picked. I can't wait for Presdient Obama to get a hold of any of these three fakes fools.. Get out and vote for Obama come Nov. don't sit back thinking he's going to win hands down, for when the republican's start cheating to change voting rights our president is going to need every one of us to support him. Right Republican's? remember no matter how they try to change the peoples voting rights there will be plenty of good people standing in line to make sure its a fair vote.. Go Mr. Presdient we the people are supporting you..
I think the Wisconsin recall will turn the tide on the direction our nation & the election will go & it's spreading to other states
Obama-Biden 2012
Well liberal hack Jim got one thing right. Walker set the bar on how other governors are reacting. Ohio, Indiana and others are already voting against Union collective bargaining....It's not the results liberal Jim wants you to believe, but his statement is correct...
The Wisconsin recall still will not change the fact that this conservative governor Walker actually set a budget and without raising taxes, which the liberals and Obama still have not accomplished. He took a state that had a $3.6 billion deficit and created a budget surplus of more than $300 million. And in his short time, with his policies he took Wisconsin's unemployment rate from 9/2% down to 7.3%...
And liberals want him replaced because Unions can no longer have there way and have to pay a little more for their insurance which is still significantly less than the average worker...
yeah, push a success story out for union thugs...
Too many people are happy with Walker and I advise the liberals to not count their chickens before the less hatch on this recall.
They are calling each other, a liar. And, they are both correct.
Your right they are correct. They are correct when they tell you how terribly bad Obama has failed this country....
See liberals and Conservatives can agree...
The only important thing for this coming Election is to remove the Cancer in our Oval Office. An inflatable President would be better than the one we have
The cancer is being spread by the radical right wing radical cracked teanuts in congress and their 13% approval rating, along with their lyin repuke leaders Mitch McDumbell and John (town cryer) Bonehead. Dump the teanuts and e recall Scott Walker.
Boy Carl, you sure look like Obama, except your teeth are too big ,and your brain is too samll.
You had an "inflatable cowboy" & look at the damage he did to our country
Now you've got "inflatable candidates" that inflate the completely opposite positions they've previously supported & now don't
You conservatives love inflatable dolls,,,, You can fill them with hot rhetoric & they are brainless, you can scream at them & they don't scream back & on the bottom is the corporate logo
No one cares about Wisconsin. We need to remove Obama and Harry Reid. Crush the Liberals and the Unions. Obama just did when he cancelled the Pipeline.
Idiot Carl. The jobs would only go to Rick (secessionist) Perry's illegals who work for minimum wage.The pipeline will be built when the time is ready.
We need another contract with America from The Grincich...........yah right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!