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SALT LAKE CITY -- Leaving behind his "positive" campaign, like the surge to his short-lived front-runner status, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has gone on the offense since the Iowa caucuses, with only one goal in mind: take down Mitt Romney.
And although the attacks only seem to hurt Gingrich's chance of obtaining the GOP nomination, he seems hell-bent on taking down his Republican rival, even if it means tarnishing the party's image and giving the Democrats an easy road to four more years in the White House.
So why is Gingrich so bent on attacking Romney? Sure Romney's the party's front-runner and less-than-ideal candidate for many conservatives, but with Gingrich, the attacks seem personal.
Prior to his drastic December fall, Gingrich appeared to be the one "not-Romney" candidate that had a serious chance to derail the Romney campaign and become the Republican nominee. But as quick as the former speaker rose to the top, his campaign took a dive with nearly a week before the Iowa caucuses.
Gingrich blamed the reversal of course on the Romney campaign, citing negative ads and publicity as the main source for his fall. Following his fourth-place finish in Iowa, Gingrich gave a scathing concessions speech, attacking an unnamed candidate for his negative campaigning in Iowa.
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"Let me be clear, and I think it's important given all the things that were done in this state over the last few weeks," Gingrich said. "We are not going to go out and run nasty ads. We're not going to go out and run 30-second gun shots. We're not, but I do reserve the right to tell the truth. And if the truth seems negative, that may be more a comment on his record than it is on politics."
Gingrich has since attacked Romney's business record aggressively, calling into question his service with Bain Capital. A super PAC supporting Gingrich has spent approximately $3.4 million in ads in South Carolina and has recently released an anti-Romney documentary called "When Mitt Romney Came to Town," which casts a negative shadow on Bain Capital.
The 28-minute long movie, which has been praised by the Democrats, reviews Bain Capital's takeover of American Pad and Paper, DDI, K-B Toys and Unimac. Each company is highlighted, with past employees describing the firing of workers and several plants being shut down as a result of Bain Capital.
The documentary comes nearly two weeks before South Carolina will cast their votes for the Republican nomination. In recent years, South Carolina has seen a drastic decrease in manufacturing jobs, with the state's unemployment rate currently sitting at 9.9 percent. Coupled with South Carolina's unemployment rate and Romney's history of taking over companies and letting employees go, Gingrich hopes to make up some ground while projecting Romney as a threat to American jobs.
However, presidential candidates Ron Paul and Rick Santorum have recently come to the defense of Romney, asking for the attack ads to stop.
"It's this hostile rhetoric, which unfortunately -- I don't want to stand here and be a defender of Mitt Romney -- but unfortunately, even some in our party now, even some running for president will engage in with respect to capitalism," Santorum said to a group of supporters at a town hall meeting in South Carolina. "It is bad enough for Barack Obama to blame folks in business for causing problems in this country. It's one other thing for Republicans to join him."
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"Two important issues that should unite Republicans are a belief in free markets and an understanding that the media often use ‘gotcha' tactics to discredit us," said the Paul campaign in a released statement. "Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich are employing leftist tactics because they can't run on their questionable records and can't distinguish themselves from Romney."
Although Romney's rivals are attempting to distinguish themselves as better alternatives to his campaign, many are seeing the negative attacks on Romney as a weakening aspect to the Republican base.
Related political news:
- A new survey released by the polling firm Public Policy Polling came out with it's new numbers for the South Carolina primary, giving Romney a four-point lead over Gingrich. However, the most intriguing number that came out of the survey was the lack of support for former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who dropped below comedian and late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert.
- As a result of negative attack ads released by the Rick Perry campaign, one of Perry's key South Carolina backers, Barry Wynn, has suddenly switched his support to Romney. Wynn said Perry's attacks on Romney's service with Bain Capital crossed the line and hurts the values of capitalism. "I've been fighting for this cause most of my life," Wynn said. "It's like fingernails on the chalkboard. It just kind of irritated you to hear those kind of attacks."