Staff Report
Humiliated in Iowa, a desperate and angry Newt Gingrich is taking the offensive against Mitt Romney, whom he accuses of “looting companies when he headed the Bain Capital investment firm,” reports NationalJournal.com, and “conservative interests are pushing back”:
“Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement Monday night. “There are a number of issues for Mitt Romney’s Republican opponents to attack him for, but attacking him for making investments in companies to create a profit for his investors is just wrong.”
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Gingrich “is using the language of the left.”
The National Review weighed in on Gingrich’s line of attack this morning, calling it “foolish and destructive.” Former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg joined the anti-Gingrich bandwagon in an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. “We are a market economy,” he said. Added Rep. Frank Gunta, sitting to his left: “I don’t think (these attacks) belong in a Republican primary.”
Writing in today’s Political Diary, our colleague Kim Strassel sums up the attacks (from Gingrich and other struggling candidates) and adds her own disapproval:
Mr. Gingrich accused Mr. Romney of “bankrupting companies and laying off employees.” A pro-Gingrich Super PAC is meanwhile gearing up to release a 27-minute video that highlights workers who lost their jobs after being restructured by Bain. The PAC has also created an anti-Romney website devoted to the topic: www.kingofbain.com. [Rick] Perry, desperate to jumpstart his flailing campaign in South Carolina, said the only time Mr. Romney had ever worried about a pink slip was “whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out.” Even [Jon] Huntsman, who likes to pitch himself as another candidate-manager, snapped that “What is clear is [Mr. Romney] likes firing people. I like creating jobs.”
Actually, the only thing that is clear is that the GOP field is ditching first principles in a desperate attempt to stop the Romney locomotive.
