Gingrich and Romney fight over history
PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida -- It is well known that Newt Gingrich is a history buff. But Mitt Romney wants in on the action and now the two candidates are both vying to be the candidate of history.
The former governor of Massachusetts released a new ad Saturday composed entirely of a clip of NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw reading news of ethics charges against the former speaker.
"Good evening. Newt Gingrich, who came to power, after all, preaching a higher standard in American politics, a man who brought down another Speaker on ethics accusations, tonight he has on his own record the judgment of his peers, Democrat and Republican alike," Brokaw said in the January 21, 1997 newscast. The ad is titled "History Lesson."
But Gingrich also wants voters to know about the past.
"I am very proud to run on a Reagan-Gingrich record," Gingrich told supporters at a rally here, invoking the popular president's name as he often does in his stump speech.
As evidence of the powerful inspiration Reagan is for Republican voters, one of Gingrich's supporters was wearing a Reagan t-shirt which had 1980 crossed out in favor of 2008.
Gingrich and Romney are in the midst of a heated battle for the Republican nomination for president, as Republicans in Florida Tuesday decide who is the best candidate to represent their party in the November 6 election against President Obama.
Gingrich is banking on his history and reputation as both a firebrand and a big thinker to energize Republican voters as he makes his case for being the most electable Republican in the race.
"How many of you remember July 1969 watching the (moon) landing? How many of you remember being proud of an America that could?" Gingrich asked his audience of supporters outside the Professional Golf Association's Museum of Golf. Most of the several hundred supporters in the retirement heavy Port St. Lucie raised their hand.
Gingrich, who earlier in the week proposed a lunar colony, made the case that the United States must set priorities if the United States wants to remain "an America that could."
"It's not just about being cheap. It's about being smart," Gingrich said, defending his proposal. He said "the elites," which he described as those Democrats and Republicans who oppose him, have transformed the United States into "an America that couldn't."
Again, he invoked Reagan when he noted that it was the 26th anniversary of the January 28, 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger with teacher Christi McAuliffe onboard.
"When Ronald Reagan spoke that night," Gingrich said, "he didn't talk about defeat, he didn't talk about failure. He talked abut the heroic process of exploration."
Romney's supporters sought to remind voters of another Reagan quotation. The super PAC backing Romney, Restore our Future, is running ads on Florida radio saying "Reagan rejected Newt''s ideas."
"On leadership and charter, Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan," the ad says, noting that Gingrich was mentioned just once in the former president's memoirs.
Tuesday may show show whose interpretation of Reagan's history Republican voters prefer in 2012.