Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have consistently traded criticisms throughout the Republican primary race, and during Thursday night’s debate Mr. Romney took on Mr. Gingrich’s claim of being a “bold Reagan conservative.”
The Republican debate Thursday night actually opened with a segment where Mr. Romney could have taken a shot at Mr. Gingrich, but he refused. CNN Anchor John King opened the debate by immediately asking Mr. Gingrich to address the interview airing the same night featuring his ex wife talking about claims that he wanted to engage in an “open marriage” with her. The former House speaker ripped into Mr. King for opening the debate that way to a roaring round of applause from the audience.
Mr. King then allowed all of Mr. Gingrich’s rival candidates to respond and state their opinion on the matter; Mr. Romney instead said “let’s get to the issues.”
As the debate moved on, Mr. King asked former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum to address the claims made by Mr. Gingrich earlier in the week that he should drop out so that “one conservative candidate” could have a direct campaign against Mr. Romney. Mr. Santorum then went on to point out flaws in Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as speaker of the House in the 1990s and also pointed to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary results as reasons for why he should stay in the race.
The former Massachusetts governor raised his hand to engage in the conversation between Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich after the former House speaker started referring to his work with former President Ronald Reagan, as he has many times throughout the Republican primary race.
“Mr. Speaker, it was — you talk about all the things you did with Ronald Reagan and the Reagan revolution and the jobs created during the Reagan years and so forth,” said Mr. Romney. “I mean, I looked at the Reagan diary. You’re mentioned once in Ronald Reagan’s diary. And in the diary, he says you had an idea in a meeting of young congressmen, and it wasn’t a very good idea and he dismissed it. That’s the entire mention.”
Mr. Reagan’s presidency has been constantly injected into the Republican primary race, primarily with Mr. Gingrich’s claim to be a “bold Reagan conservative” who will implement the same policies that President Reagan used in the early 1980s to pull the U.S. out of an economic recession similar to the one currently being experienced by the U.S. under the Obama administration.
In recent weeks especially, Mr. Gingrich has tried to contrast his brand of Reagan politics against what he claims is a “Massachusetts moderate” in Mr. Romney. Last week a pro Newt Gingrich Super PAC called Winning Our Future produced a 28 minute video called “King of Bain” criticizing Mr. Romney’s investment practices during his tenure at Bain Capital. In the days following the release of the movie several Republican leaders accused Mr. Gingrich of attacking free enterprise by calling into question the investment practices of Bain Capital.
During the debate Thursday, that same argument took center stage, as Mr. Gingrich claimed that as a member of the House in the Reagan administration, he helped to create the economic environment in the U.S. that allowed companies like Bain Capital to thrive.
“Under Ronald Reagan, we had the right jobs, the right laws, the right regulators, the right leadership. We created 16 million new jobs,” said Mr. Gingrich. “And the truth is, you did very well under the rules that we created to make it easier for entrepreneurs to go out and do things.”
The former Massachusetts governor responded to his claims by comparing his 25 year tenure in the private sector to Mr. Gingrich’s “4 years” as speaker of the House.
Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich have claimed throughout the race to have the economic reforms plans to spur job creation in the U.S. According to their plans laid out on their campaign websites, they each want to lower the corporate tax rate in the U.S. to make American businesses more competitive in the global market. Mr. Romney’s jobs plan proposes lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent, while Mr. Gingrich wants to see the corporate tax rate as low as 12.5 percent. Regarding individual taxpayer tax rates, Mr. Romney wants to keep them “marginal,” while Mr. Gingrich proposes making permanent the reduced individual tax rates that were implemented by the Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2010, among other temporary and permanent tweaks to the tax code.
In contrast, with the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, then President Reagan implemented a sweeping round of temporary and permanent changes to the tax code, which is what Mr. Gingrich often refers to as the “bold Reagan” model that he wants to pursue if elected president.
During the debate Thursday night though, Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Gingrich’s claims of being a “bold Reagan conservative” with the mention of Mr. Reagan’s diary that he says didn’t speak very highly of Mr. Gingrich.
“I mean, he mentions George Bush 100 times. He even mentions my dad once,” said Mr. Romney.
A Public Polling Policy poll of likely South Carolina primary voters indicates Mr. Gingrich holding a slight lead over Mr. Romney. It will be interesting to see how their respective performances in Thursday night’s debate affect voters on Saturday.
