TAMPA, Fla. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ripped into the surging Newt Gingrich as an “influence peddler” and a disgraced Washington insider in Monday night’s debate as the former Massachusetts governor tried to revive his standing among Florida voters ahead of next week’s primary vote.
Gingrich, the former House speaker who has both defined and elevated his candidacy through strong debate performances, has taken the lead in the Sunshine State, new polls show, though he was much more subdued in the latest debate.
Romney, on the other hand, managed to lands solid blows on Gingrich, criticizing his time as House speaker and accusing him of peddling influence as a lobbyist after he left Congress.
Romney leveled the attack hours after Gingrich made public his contract with Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprise that paid him $1.6 million as a consultant.
“We just learned today that his contract with Freddie Mac was provided by the lobbyists at Freddie Mac,” Romney said. “I don’t think we can possibly retake the White House if the person who’s leading our party is the person who was working for the chief lobbyist of Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac was paying Speaker Gingrich $1.6 million at the same time Freddie Mac was costing the people of Florida millions upon millions of dollars.”
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, another government-sponsored mortgage giant, are blamed by economists for helping create the housing bubble that eventually dragged down the economy and, in places like Florida, devastated a once-robust housing market.
Gingrich insisted he was not lobbying, but was hired as a consultant and for his historical knowledge of Washington.
Gingrich accused Romney of not telling the truth and said even former GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Sen. John McCain, who now endorses Romney, have accused him of lying.
“We have an ad in which both John McCain and Mike Huckabee in 2007 and 2008 explain how much they think Governor Romney can’t tell the truth,” Gingrich said, calling the accusation, “the worst kind of trivial politics.”
Romney did not back down, but rather pointed to the bipartisan reprimand House lawmakers meted out to Gingrich over an ethics violation.
“The speaker was given an opportunity to be the leader of our party in 1994. And at the end of four years, he had to resign in disgrace,” Romney said.
Gingrich, who led the 1994 Republican takeover of the House, resigned as speaker and left Congress after the GOP lost seats in the 1998 elections.
Gingrich said he stepped down to take responsibility for the election losses. But Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who served in the House when Gingrich was speaker, said Gingrich’s exit wasn’t voluntary.
“He didn’t have the votes [to remain speaker],” said Paul, who participated in the debate but is not actively campaigning in Florida. “That was what the problem was. So this idea that he voluntarily reneged and he was going to punish himself because we didn’t do well in the election, that’s just not the way it was.”
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, the fourth candidate still standing after three nominating contests, joined Paul in assaulting Gingrich, against whom Santorum is competing for conservative voters.
