Gingrich poised to embrace bitter rival Romney
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Later today, Newt Gingrich is set to - finally - suspend his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich told USA Today in an interview Tuesday that he will embrace Romney's candidacy and is prepared to campaign for his former rival - and in return, Romney will help Gingrich retire some of his millions of dollars in campaign debt.
Still, it may not be easy for Gingrich, who ultimately won only two primary contests. Consider the praise he offered on Tuesday: "Mitt Romney met the first criteria of being a good candidate: He won. Now, you have to respect that."
Talk about faint praise. Indeed, Romney's ability to win isn't something Gingrich had much respect for during the primary, when he repeatedly suggested that Romney was using his fundraising advantage to buy the election.
That was just one of the nasty comments Gingrich offered about Romney; the Obama campaign spotlighted some more of them, including Gingrich's unambiguous characterization of Romney as a liar, in a web video released this morning. On Tuesday, the Obama campaign released a television ad that followed Gingrich in spotlighting Romney's "Swiss bank account."
No matter what Gingrich does to help Romney from here on out, that history of attacks isn't going away. Gingrich is ultimately a net negative for the presumptive nominee: He won't be able to significantly help - it's hard to imagine there are many voters whose decision in November will have much to do with Gingrich - and his past comments can be used in attack ads against the GOP standard bearer.
But those facts don't make his announcement at 3 p.m. Eastern Time in Arlington, Virginia today - Romney, it's worth noting, is not scheduled to be there - any less interesting. The big question is the degree to which Gingrich throws his arms around his former rival, who he once described as primarily qualified for "managing the decay." Rick Santorum, who left the race last month, has decided not to offer a full-throated endorsement thus far, seemingly because he wants to cement his status as a leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, a group that still looks at Romney skeptically.
Gingrich could take that path as well. But despite his campaign trail rhetoric, the former House speaker and Beltway power broker has always been an insider. Reclaiming a central spot in his party (after a primary that seems to have diminished him) means lining up behind the presumptive nominee. For Gingrich, that means swallowing his pride, accepting defeat, and unambiguously embracing a man he seems genuinely not to like. No wonder it's taken the self-described "transformational figure" so long to finally get out of the way.
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Translation: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The "good ole boy" and the GOP hates Obama so much they will dance with the devil to try and defeat him.
anyway, only one GOP candidate have to win,
the Newt Gingrich support to Mitt Romney will surprise no one.
Republicans have the same ideas and the same objective.
"au revoir"
1. He's a liar
CBS' "The Early Show," January 3, 2012
Gingrich: "Well, you seem shocked by it! This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC - it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth..."
"I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine."
2. He's not a conservative
CBS' "The Early Show," January 3, 2012
"It's just like this pretense that he's a conservative. Here's a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in 'Romneycare,' puts Planned Parenthood in 'Romneycare,' raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he's magically a conservative."
3. He can't win
Concord, N.H., Jan. 4, 2012
"I find it amazing the news media continues to say he's the most electable Republican when he can't even break out of his own party...The fact is, Gov. Romney in the end has a very limited appeal in conservative party."
4. His immigration reform plan is an "Obama level fantasy"
Univision interview, Jan. 25, 2012
"Now, for Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off she is going to self deport? This verges - this is an Obama level fantasy. He certainly shows no concern for the humanity of people who are already here..."
"I think you have to live in worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality."
5. He profits off the poor
CNN debate, Jan. 26, 2012
"Maybe Governor Romney in the spirit of openness should tell us how much money he's made off of how many households that have been foreclosed by his investments."
6. He looted companies as head of Bain Capital
Manchester, NH, Jan. 9, 2012
"Now you have to ask a question - is that really, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that in fact somehow a little bit of a flawed system? And so I do draw distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and then leaving a factory that should be there."
7. He's full of "pious baloney"
NBC News/ Facebook debate, Jan. 8, 2012
"Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is, you ran in '94 and lost. That's why you weren't serving in the Senate with Rick Santorum. The fact is, you had a very bad re-election rating, you dropped out of office, you had been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president. You didn't have this interlude of citizenship while you thought about what you do. You were running for president while you were governor."
8. Romney's adviser was right to compare Romney to an etch-a-sketch
Lake Charles, La., March 21, 2012
"Now given everybody's fears about Gov. Romney's flip flops, to have his communications director say publicly to all of us, if we're dumb enough to nominate him we should expect by the acceptance speech he'll move back to the left, triggers everything people are worried about."
"Their pictures aren't permanent. There's nothing locked down. You can re-do every time you want. And that's the problem."
9. He's a timid leader who can't bring about change
Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 4, 2012
Romney's a "Massachusetts moderate who, in fact, is pretty good at managing the decay." He's "given no evidence in his years in Massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure."
10. He's out of touch and thinks we're stupid
Mt. Dora, Fla. Jan. 26, 2012
"We're not going to beat Barack Obama with some guy who has Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Island accounts, owns shares of Goldman Sachs while it forecloses on Florida and is himself a stockholder in Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac while he tries to think the rest of us are too stupid to put the dots together to understand what this is all about."