Romney is going full negative on Newt and has now taken up the job his SuperPACs were doing before. This is certainly the sign of a desperate candidate. I don’t know if it will stick. My feeling is him rattling off a long series of accusations will make him look worse than Newt, and none of them will really stick.
Newt will probably have to explain some of these, like why he resigned from the House right after winning reelection. From what I can tell, Newt resigned because they got bad election results in 1998 and they would have voted him out as Speaker because of it. He apparently didn’t want to remain as a regular House member, but I think that’s only natural for anyone. The resignation came almost 2 years after the ethics charges were dismissed/settled, so it has nothing to do with them, but Mitt seems to be trying to make it sound like the ethics charges resulted directly in Newt’s resignation.
This new article starts out with nasty, nasty stuff from Mitt and Politico doesn’t even try to sugar coat it...
Politico: Mitt Romney: Newt Gingrich is a ‘failed leader,’ ‘disgrace’
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71802.html
Also, Romney was on Huckabee Sunday night, who IMO gave him very leading questions geared up to give him mile-wide openings to bash Newt, questions that it sounded like the Romney campaign provided to him. Romney opened up attacks on Newt the kind of which he has never done personally before, adopting a lot of the messages that only his SuperPAC had used before. Ethics violations, $300,000 settlement, 35 years as a Washington insider, lobbying for 15 years, working for health care companies, lobbying for Medicare Part D, taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac for being a historian, sitting on the couch with Pelosi for climate change legislation, his House members turning on him, being “kicked out” of the House, erratic leadership, etc. Romney got all of that out in 2 minutes or less.
The Dems and media were on him almost constantly, best I remember. It was also reported on the news that he felt that the media coverage of him was distracting from the things that needed to get done, and he felt that he needed to resign so that legislation could move forward.
If I were Romney, I would STFU about healthcare.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/11/romneys-advisers-met-with-obama-to-help-craft-obama-care/
A big problem for Romney is that he doesn’t do ‘pit bull’ very well. He’s taken great pains to project a certain image and now suddenly being the heavy makes him look foolish and desperate.
Also didn't he go into a rehab center or at least intense counseling about that time. Remember he was sixteen when wife number one got hold of him. She was one of his teachers. He married her when she got pregnant and he was nineteen.....Enough to mess up the mind of any kid.