LAS VEGAS – Newt Gingrich angrily jabbed at Mitt Romney Saturday and vowed to continue campaigning all the way to the Republican National Convention in August following his loss in Nevada’s GOP caucuses.
The former Georgia congressman suggested Nevada’s sizable Mormon population helped Romney – a fellow Mormon -- win Saturday.
And he accused Romney of being dishonest during their second debate in Florida, saying “if you can’t tell the truth as a candidate for president, how can the country possibly expect you to lead as president?”
“In the second Florida debate, I had nothing to say because I had never before seen a person who I thought was a serious candidate for president be that fundamentally dishonest,” Gingrich told reporters at the Venetian hotel. “And it was blatant. And it was deliberate. And he knew he was doing it.”
For the third time in as many days, Gingrich slapped at the former Massachusetts governor for saying he was "not concerned about the very poor" because they have an "ample safety net." The multimillionaire later said he misspoke and that he meant to say he was focused on helping the middle class but would work to patch any holes in the safety net for the poor.
“Actually, this week several things have clarified themselves that are very helpful,” Gingrich said. “Unlike Gov. Romney, I care very deeply about helping the poorest Americans.”
Gingrich was vying for second place with Texas congressman Ron Paul in the Silver State’s nominating contest. He vowed to stay in the race until the national convention in August.
“We will leave on Monday to go to Denver,” he continued, “and then to Minneapolis and then we will go onto four cities in Ohio and we will continue with the campaign all the way to Tampa.”
Gingrich must now find a way to sustain his battered campaign until Super Tuesday after stinging back-to-back losses in Florida and Nevada.
The campaign trail won’t get any easier for Gingrich this week, when Republican voters in Colorado and Minnesota are scheduled to make their picks. Mitt Romney handily won in both those states in the 2008 GOP caucuses.
“Those are all places that are not going to be too hospitable for him,” said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Gingrich said he would focus on finding a “series of victories that by the end of the Texas primary will leave us at about at parity with Gov. Romney. And from that point forward we will see if we can actually win the nomination.”
Gingrich is scheduled to make two public campaign stops in Colorado and one in Minnesota Monday before moving on to Ohio Tuesday. Mitt Romney overwhelmingly won the Colorado caucuses in 2008 with 60 percent of the vote. Gingrich’s supporters are hoping for a second place finish in the Centennial State.
“Mitt is still the prohibitive favorite here. But Newt is outworking Mitt on the ground. He just is,” said Patrick Davis, Gingrich’s Colorado campaign director and the former political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Those comments are similar to ones Gingrich’s supporters made about his chances in Nevada. Before he even arrived in the Silver State, they were predicting he could hope for second place at best.
Gingrich’s campaign started to show signs of disarray early on in Nevada. His campaign abruptly canceled a meeting it had scheduled with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, later calling it a miscommunication. And then campaign officials told news reporters that real estate mogul Donald Trump was about to endorse Gingrich. Instead, Trump endorsed Romney Thursday.
Gingrich stuck to a thin public campaign schedule throughout his swing through Nevada. On the day of the caucuses, for example, he scheduled no public campaign events except for the evening news conference to respond to the caucus results.
Gingrich, however, has spent considerable time behind the scenes here raising money. He needs the cash to help sustain his efforts through Super Tuesday, when Georgia and many other delegate-rich states will hold their primaries.
Damore, the political science professor in Las Vegas, suggested the thin public schedule indicated Gingrich was conceding Nevada and that he was fatigued after spending months on the campaign trail.
“He doesn’t have much of an organization” in Nevada, Damore said. “There are no debates for him to make use of… He is probably figuring out what is the best way to proceed and try to stay viable until Super Tuesday.”
Things weren’t looking good for Gingrich early Saturday, when Nevada Republicans started to cast their ballots. Romney overwhelmingly won in several Republican caucus precincts in the northwestern part of this city Saturday morning as Gingrich kept a low profile.
At Bonanza High School in Las Vegas, Romney won one precinct with 33 out of 44 votes, a local Republican precinct official confirmed. He won a second with 18 out of 27 votes. Gingrich won only a handful of votes in each of those precincts.
Mike Weber, a businessman from Las Vegas, said he was going to cast his ballot at the high school for Romney because of business experience, his “cool head” and his stronger performances in the presidential debates. He said Gingrich “seems like he has a chip on his shoulder.”
“He has to go after Obama and not Mitt Romney,” Weber said of Gingrich as he waited to cast his ballot in the high school cafeteria. “It is getting sad for the Republican Party… You wake up the next day and you don’t know what Gingrich is going to say.”
Juli Clark, a librarian from Las Vegas, decided to vote for Romney as well, calling him a “man of character” and crediting him for his work as CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. She called Gingrich “pompous” and said she could not envision his third wife, Callista, as a first lady.
“I have never liked Newt,” she said. “He likes to hear himself talk.” As for Romney, Clark said: “He is good at business and we really need that.”
At the end of his news conference Saturday, Gingrich picked the New York Giants to win over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
"This is really important. Forget all this other junk," he joked about politics after reporters asked him about the Super Bowl. "I am for the Giants."
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