Bob Schieffer Confronts Gingrich: Some Say You Are Doing Obama’s Work For Him
Newt Gingrich has pursued an aggressive strategy against Mitt Romney in the past week or so of the presidential campaign. And between the anti-Romney advertisement released by a pro-Gingrich Super PAC and Rick Perry saying Romney is a “vulture capitalist,” some Republican strategists are concerned the candidates are providing President Obama with enough ammo to use against the eventual nominee in the general election.
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On Face the Nation today, Bob Schieffer asked Gingrich if he thought this was a fair assessment. Gingrich insisted all the pushback from his negative ads was coming from Romney supporters who are worried about support being chipped away at by a primary opponent. He explained just exactly what a GOP presidential nominee would have to weather after surviving the primaries.
“Whoever we nominate has to be prepared to take on Barack Obama. And the president already has 240 million dollars in the bank, he plans a billion-dollar campaign that will overwhelmingly be negative. And our nominee had better be capable of standing there, telling the truth, withstanding the negative ads, and winning the debate this fall.”
When Schieffer asked Gingrich if Romney would be the weakest candidate the Republicans could nominate in the general, Gingrich pointed to a whole host of moderate-to-liberal positions Romney has taken over the years. However, he made sure that his number one priority, no matter what happens in the next ten months, is to get Obama to lose reelection. Gingrich hinted that he might end up giving some support to Romney were he to become the nominee, but insisted that a strong conservative stands a better chance against Obama than a “Massachusetts moderate.”
Gingrich predicted he would win the South Carolina primary because his views are more aligned with voters than Romney’s. Doubling down on his accusation that Romney is a “liar,” Gingrich suggested Romney is unwilling or unable to run on his record because it would not exactly play well with the voters he is trying to attract. He also admitted that he doesn’t “like Super PACs,” and would rather see some election reform taking place so the money goes directly through the candidates.
But getting back to the charge that his attacks on Romney are really just helping Obama, Gingrich compared the primary process to football playoffs and the general election to the Super Bowl. All Gingrich said he wants to do is just have every Republican candidate vetted now so that Obama cannot use the same line of attacks in the fall.
Watch the video below, courtesy of CBS:
