MOUNT DORA, Fla. – Bain Capital is out. Goldman Sachs is in.
Newt Gingrich gave a punchy prelude to tonight’s Republican presidential debate at a tea party rally here and opened up a new attack frontier against his primary GOP rival, Mitt Romney. His populist speech began with an unusually pointed and lengthy attack on Romney, with a helping of anti-bank rhetoric.
“You’re watching ads paid for with the money taken from the people of Florida by companies like Goldman Sachs, recycled back into ads trying to stop you from having a choice in this election,” Gingrich said. “That’s what this is all about.”
Gingrich later added, "I think that this is a very close race in Florida. I think all the weight of his negative advertising and all the weight of his dishonesty has hurt us some."
The former House Speaker from Georgia told reporters after the speech that he felt it was time to respond forcefully to the onslaught of advertising, much of it targeting Gingrich’s consulting work for government-backed mortgage lender Freddie Mac. Florida's GOP primary vote is Tuesday.
The Romney camp and its allies are attempting to tie Gingrich to the foreclosure crisis – a phenomenon more pronounced in Florida than almost anywhere in the country – and Gingrich called the campaign “fundamentally dishonest.”
“I think someone who owns stock in a place that forecloses on Floridians has a lot of gall to start raising the issue,” he told reporters. “I think we ought to find out so how much money he has made of the years foreclosing on Floridians. … He wants to run a campaign where he drowns me in mud with money he raises from people who are foreclosing on Floridians. I want to cut through the mud."
Romney’s newly released tax returns show that his and his wife’s blind trusts profited from holdings in a Goldman Sachs fund for high-dollar clients. The investment firm has been targeted for misconduct in processing foreclosures. It remains one of the most well-connected companies in Democratic and Republican politics.
According to data from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman Sachs employees and their families contributed $367,200 to the Romney campaign through Sept. 30. CRP found no Goldman contributions to Gingrich.
Campaigning in South Carolina Gingrich targeted Romney for his work leading private equity firm Bain Capital, which took over companies and at times shed jobs. Many conservatives said the Bain criticism was an attack on the free market itself and accused Gingrich of giving ammunition to Democrats. Gingrich won South Carolina convincingly, upending the race and throwing the presumed front-runner on his heels.
The Romney campaign also has been sending surrogates to talk to reporters at each event, with Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, taking the baton this morning.
“I think he’s really worried about how things are coming in Florida,” Chaffetz said after the speech.”If he thinks it’s hot now, just wait until Mitt Romney turns the heat up on Barack Obama. This is hardball.”
Gingrich smirked when asked why he did not send people to rebut Romney’s speeches.
"He doesn’t say anything worth rebutting,” Gingrich said. “I mean we would send somebody if we thought it was a useful exercise.”
Though the former Massachusetts governor and his allies have flooded the airwaves with ads, Gingrich can hardly cry poverty. The Gingrich-allied Winning Our Future Super PAC, thanks in part to $10 million backing from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, is dropping $6 million in ads in Florida painting Romney as close to President Barack Obama on health care reform and other issues.
Susan Conley, of Winter Park, Fla., stuck her finger down her throat in a fake gagging motion when asked about the attack ads flooding her television.
“I hate all that,” she said before the rally began. “Don’t tell me what he did 20 years ago. Tell me what you’re going to do for me now.”
Conley’s vote on Tuesday will be for Gingrich.
“I think he's got a lot of tea party in him,” she said.
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