Gingrich Gets Aggressive

Newt Gingrich senses this is his chance against rival candidate Mitt Romney. He got aggressive in the latest television debate.

Just a few days ago, the race to curry favor with South Carolina voters seemed to be over. Multimillionaire and former Governor Mitt Romney led the opinion polls by such a margin that there seemed to be no doubt he would enjoy his third primary victory. That’s history. It’s going to get exciting on Saturday.

Not only because a recount in Iowa showed that Romney didn’t win the Jan. 3 election by eight votes and conservative Christian Rick Santorum was the actual winner. Not only because former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has spent weeks flogging Romney as a greedy vulture who made millions by destroying American jobs as CEO of Bain Capital Management. And not only because Texas Governor Rick Perry withdrew from the race and threw his support to Gingrich.

At midweek, Romney was asked why he wouldn’t make his tax returns public. His response that he wouldn’t release them until mid-April and that he probably was in the 15 percent tax bracket gave rise to the next attacks. Most Americans are in a higher bracket.

By the time the Thursday evening debate took place, Romney’s defense strategy wasn’t looking so hot. Gingrich scored points against him at will. The newest opinion polls suddenly had Gingrich ahead of him by anywhere from two to six points.

Gingrich himself came under fire on Thursday when his second wife said in an ABC interview that Gingrich had asked her to tolerate the extramarital affair he was having with the woman who is now is third wife. Not really good publicity for a family-values conservative. By Thursday evening, however, Gingrich was denying her allegations and was getting standing ovations from the audience by saying that such trash didn’t belong in a presidential debate.

We’ll see on Saturday how that goes over with South Carolina voters.