WE Question Newt's!!

The Question Is: Who Is More Deceitful!?

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Gingrich questions Romney's honesty

By Tom Cohen, CNN

updated 12:59 PM EST, Sun January 29, 2012


Just two days before the Florida primary, Newt Gingrich is trailing Mitt Romney in the latest polls.
Washington (CNN) -- Newt Gingrich on Sunday accused front-running rival Mitt Romney of waging a dishonest campaign, saying the former Massachusetts governor is trying to cover up some liberal stances in his past.

In an interview on the ABC program "This Week," Gingrich suggested that Romney lacked the character to be president.

The two Republican presidential hopefuls top the polls in Florida leading up to Tuesday's primary. Romney is out front in the latest polls, and a victory would give him new momentum after Gingrich won last week's South Carolina primary.

Stung by Romney's resurgence, which has benefited from strong debate performances last week and advertisements that harshly attacked Gingrich, the former House speaker has increasingly challenged Romney's honesty.

"He would say thing after thing after thing that just plain wasn't true," Gingrich said of Romney in reference to the Thursday debate on CNN . "I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false. "

In particular, Gingrich cited Romney's claim that he had never voted for a Democrat when a Republican was on the ballot, including his support for Democrat Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Massachusetts presidential primary.

Incumbent President George H.W. Bush and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan were on the GOP ballot in the primary, but Romney has said he registered as an independent and voted for Tsongas as a strategic move against Bill Clinton.

"He can't even remember his own voting record," Gingrich said Sunday. "The debate the other night, what he said was just plain false."

To Gingrich, such dishonesty raised questions about Romney's suitability to be president.

"You cannot be president of the United States if you cannot be honest and candid with the American people," Gingrich said. "And that's compounded, frankly, by a number of the ads he runs, which are just plain false."

In particular, Gingrich cited claims in Romney ads that he resigned in disgrace from the House in 1999 after being cited two years earlier for an ethics violation.

On Saturday, Romney called Gingrich "a great guy with a lot of great ideas," but added his chief rival's standing as an historian "doesn't give him the right to re-write history."

"He was fined for ethics violations," Romney said. "He ultimately had to resign in disgrace. He can't rewrite history."

Gingrich responded Sunday that "I did not resign in disgrace," and he also rejected the assertion that the $300,000 he paid to cover the cost of the investigation against him was a fine.

At a Naples, Florida, campaign event later Sunday, Romney touted his debate performances in Florida, drawing cheers by asking: "Wasn't that a hoot?"

Referring to Gingrich's complaints about the two Florida debates, including the former House speaker's protest against organizers telling the audience to keep quiet at the first one last Monday, Romney said Gingrich was "now finding excuses everywhere he can" for his falling support.

The increasingly vitriolic campaign rhetoric caused some Republicans to lament infighting that they fear will hurt the surviving candidate's chances of defeating President Barack Obama in November.

"I think it could go on a while and it would not be to our benefit," veteran Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, told NBC's "Meet the Press."

In particular, McCain called for a halt to the Republican debates --19 so far this campaign dating back to last May -- that he said have "turned into mud wrestling instead of exposition of the candidates' views on the issues."

"We've had enough of that, and it's time to recognize who the real adversary is and that's not each other," McCain said.

On the CBS program "Face the Nation," real estate tycoon Donald Trump also noted what he called "a very nasty race."

"The level of hatred, I guess you could say, there's no other word for it, it's unbelievable," Trump said, adding that the eventual GOP winner might emerge a stronger candidate, but it was "very possible they're hurting themselves."

In addition, Trump -- who has in the past expressed interest in running for president but never followed through -- again raised the possibility of mounting an independent campaign if he believes the Republican nominee would be unable to beat Obama.

Romney reserved his harshest comments for Obama, accusing the president on Sunday of failing to lead and seeking to transform the country into something "we might not recognize."

In other campaign news Sunday, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum canceled a series of events -- including an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" -- after his 3-year-old daughter Isabella was admitted to a Philadelphia hospital.

The girl, known as Bella, suffers from a chromosomal condition called Trisomy 18 caused by extra material from chromosome 18. It is three times more common in girls than boys, and patients who survive past the first week experience serious medical and developmental problems, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Santorum is running a distant third in Florida polling, but insists he will continue in the race. He and Gingrich are competing for conservative votes, and Gingrich noted Sunday that combining their support would exceed the polling numbers for Romney.

"There's no evidence anywhere that Romney's getting anywhere near 50%. Gradually, conservatives are consolidating," said Gingrich, who received the endorsement of tea party favorite Herman Cain on Saturday.

"We're down basically to the fewer conservatives there are, the better we're doing," Gingrich said of his campaign.

In endorsing Gingrich, Cain cited the former speaker's "big ideas" and his willingness to go through what he called the "sausage grinder" of the campaign process.

'I know what this sausage grinder is all about," said Cain, a businessman who dropped out of the race after allegations of sexual harassment in his past. "I know that he is going through this sausage grinder because he cares about the future of the United States of America."

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has conceded Florida because he knew he had no chance in the state's winner-take-all primary, campaigned Saturday in Maine for caucuses taking place there through February 11.

He told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that he expects to do well in Maine, but acknowledged he lacks the financial backing to compete head-on in every state.

"The rough road isn't, you know, presenting our case," Paul said. "The rough road is competing with, you know, establishment money, the big money. ... We can raise those millions, but we can't compete with tens of millions of dollars for each individual state. And that's what, you know, came up in Florida. You need a lot of money. So it's a money game. And I think that's one of the things that frustrates a lot of people."