PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — An indignant Newt Gingrich sought to reenergize his waning standing in the Republican presidential field in Florida Saturday by deriding rival Mitt Romney as a liar while doubling down on his attacks against the establishment Republicans backing Romney.
“The people say I’m a good debater [but] you cannot debate somebody who is dishonest,” the former House speaker said at a campaign stop here. “I didn’t like either debate. I watched them [and in] a couple scenes… I’m staring in amazement because I know what he is saying is untrue.”
Gingrich’s campaign has released a TV ad featuring a quote from former Arkansas governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee saying of Romney, “If a man’s dishonest to get a job, he’ll be dishonest on the job.” Huckabee denounced Gingrich for recycling the quote, but he’s using it anyway.
Gingrich is tearing into Romney as the surge of support he enjoyed following his decisive victory in South Carolina a week ago begins to wane. Polls now show Gingrich trailing Romney here after a number of Republican leaders and former lawmakers who worked with Gingrich unleashed a barrage of attacks against Gingrich’s character and credibility and warned that his candidacy threatened Republican success in the fall.
“If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices,” Bob Dole, a former Senate majority leader and presidential candidate, wrote in an open letter made public by Romney’s campaign. “Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself.”
Former House majority leader Tom DeLay, a top deputy to Gingrich in the mid-1990s, charged that Gingrich isn’t really conservative.
“When he was speaker he was erratic, undisciplined,” DeLay said during a radio interview.
And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, mocked Gingrich’s proposal to establish a colony on the moon.
“I think we ought to send Newt Gingrich to the moon,” McCain said.
But Gingrich has tried to use the Republican establishment’s attacks against him to fuel his own large, passionate following. He tells supporters the attacks are part of a fear-driven conspiracy led by Washington insiders, who he called “crazed people terrified that I would win the nomination writing whacked-out things.”
Playing to Republican primary voters’ desire for a more conservative alternative to Romney, Gingrich maintains a moderate like Romney couldn’t beat President Obama in the fall.
“We ran a moderate in 1996 [Dole] and we lost,” he said. “We ran a moderate in 2008 [McCain] and we lost. I think the only way to defeat Barack Obama is to run a solid conservative who can make the case for our values, our beliefs.”
But the criticisms of Gingrich have raised doubts in some voters’ minds.
“Everybody worries about whether he will implode,” said Joe Bernitt, a retired oil executive. “I think there is a real chance that he will. It bothers me that Bob Dole and other congressmen say they can’t work with Newt.”
Still, Bernitt said he’ll probably vote for Gingrich on Tuesday because he’s more personable than Romney.
“Romney is a little plastic,” Bernitt said. “I think Newt can get [the nomination] but he needs to show consistency.”
