Republican presidential candidates are increasing their attacks on the front runner Mitt Romney in the last hours leading up to Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican primary election, but no one is attacking him harder than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Mr. Gingrich released a new ad attacking the former Massachusetts governor Monday evening. The ad shows a picture of Mr. Romney, while quoting several articles from The Boston Globe and other Massachusetts newspapers from the early 2000s, showing how Mr. Romney raised taxes in Massachusetts by more than $700 million.
Throughout the new ad Mr. Romney is called “Mitt the Massachusetts Moderate.”
It will be interesting to see if Mr. Gingrich’s constant references to Massachusetts in a negative connotation with Mr. Romney will hurt him at all if he stays in therace until Super Tuesday in March, the day of the Massachusetts Republican primary election.
Mr. Gingrich’s new ad is nearly as negative as the ads that were run against him in Iowa in recent weeks by the Super Political Action Committees that support Mr. Romney. At the end of the video, viewers are encouraged to go to a website called “RomneyTaxes.com,” which actually links them to a new page on Mr. Gingrich’s presidential campaign website.
The new page features 13 pages of quotes and facts from Massachusetts newspapers and fact checking websites explaining how Mr. Romney raised taxes as governor and called them “fees.”
“Romney raised fees on people who are blind, on drivers, on hunters, on veterans, on drivers, on those getting married, on homebuyers, on boaters, on golfers,” the new Gingrich campaign web page reads. “Romney’s fees burdened even society’s most needy: people who are blind and those with intellectual and developmental abilities.”
The claims that Mr. Romney actually raised taxes are contradictory to his consistent campaign rhetoric, as he has maintained that he lowered taxes “19 times” as the governor of Massachusetts.
The ad is not likely to convince the majority of voters in New Hampshire who according to the latest polls are supporting Mr. Romney. The Public Polling Policy poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters released Sunday shows Mr. Romney garnering 35 percent of the votes, compared to Mr. Gingrich who finished with 11 percent in fourth place behind former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman.
However, this new ad combined with a 27 minute movie about Bain Capital that will run in South Carolina in the coming weeks (according to Mr. Gingrich) is likely to slowly take some votes away from Mr. Romney in states with later primary elections.
