Gingrich confidently barnstorms N.H.
DOVER, N.H. – Buoyed by a strong debate performance and claiming the race is tightening, Newt Gingrich exuded confidence at the start of a whirlwind seven-event final day of campaigning before Tuesday's presidential primary.
“It is a classic New Hampshire primary, in that I think the people deliberately make it impossible for the pollsters to figure out what’s going on,” the former U.S. House Speaker from Georgia said at a meet-and-greet with dozens of supporters in the sprawling Philbrick estate on the Cochecho River.
“And I think coming out of the two debates over the weekend there is a tremendous response that we really have an opportunity to have a very different outcome than people thought one week ago.”
Although some surveys show the race tightening, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney still holds a commanding lead. The remaining candidates are close in poll numbers, and Gingrich said he will surge by painting a “contrast” with the front-runner – whom he assailed Monday morning as “confused” for his changing positions on issues.
He joked about his moment in Sunday’s debate when he told Romney to drop the “pious baloney,” a line that has become a minor Internet phenomenon. Gingrich said his campaign will put out a Web video today running down the list of Romney’s fee increases as governor.
When one audience member, Linda Teagan, revealed that she was a former state representative in Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire, Gingrich marveled that “this is like someone who came from across enemy lines” and recruited her to shoot a campaign advertisement for South Carolina – the next primary state.
“This is going to be a very productive day,” Gingrich quipped.
With a Romney victory tomorrow widely assumed, the candidates are jockeying for position for South Carolina. Winning Our Future, a Super PAC aligned with Gingrich, will spend $3.4 million in advertising there, according to former Gingrich aide Rick Tyler who now works with the group. The ad blitz will focus at least in part on Romney’s time at Bain Capital, an investment firm that often took over struggling companies and shed jobs in the process.
In a brief news conference Gingrich was asked if his new tone was a contradiction. In Iowa he bemoaned negative campaigning and said Romney should disavow the ads from his Super PAC, Restore Our Future. Gingrich said he would have preferred to run a totally positive campaign but now he has no choice.
“I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament,” he said.
Gingrich has seven events on his schedule today, sticking mostly in the densely populated Manchester and Nashua areas.
