Republican Campaigns Turn Nasty Ahead of Florida’s Primary

COMMENTARY | With the Florida primary just days away, the two Republican front-runners are standing toe to toe all the way to Tuesday’s vote. Attacks have heated up Florida’s airwaves as Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are dead set on proving what a cad the other candidate really is. Accusations run from dirty politics to outright corruption. Both Gingrich and Romney have accused the other of being incapable of beating President Obama in this fall’s presidential election. The Iowa caucus and the two primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina have not produced a clear front-runner as the months wind down to the Republican Convention in August.

Gingrich has vowed he will take his campaign all the way and is certain he will be the nominee. Things turned nasty Saturday as Gingrich blamed his not-so-stellar performance at last Thursday’s debate on the fact that Romney’s dishonesty made it impossible to debate him with any kind of civility. Gingrich also complained that NBC dropped the ball when they muzzled the audience and would not let them react, but then criticized CNN for filling the crowd with rowdy Romney supporters. According to Fox News, Romney responded by saying Gingrich was like Goldilocks and had to have everything just right.

Meanwhile both candidates have come under attack for using ads that have both NBC and Mike Huckabee up in arms. Romney used an old news clip of Tom Brokaw reporting on Gingrich’s ouster as speaker of the house. NBC has asked the Romney campaign to remove the ad. Huckabee is complaining about Gingrich’s use of an ad that shows the former governor complaining about dishonesty and is afraid some might view this as an endorsement of Gingrich.

Since primary season has started, both Gingrich and Romney have spent the bulk of their time tearing each other to pieces and little time focusing on the job at hand: beating Obama in November. The president has to be smiling at all this infighting among the Republican front-runners, who are spending millions doing exactly what the president needs to do when he kicks off his campaign full force later this year: discredit the Republican nominee.

Florida’s primary this Tuesday will no doubt be a tie-breaker, and one of the two will be a clear front runner through February and into the all important “Super Tuesday” on March 6, where 10 states will cast their votes for the Republican nominee. Too much time and money is being spent slinging mud. It’s time the candidates focus on the issues. August is a long way off and these two can do a lot of damage to the Republicans’ chances of regaining the White House if they continue with the personal attacks on each other. After a while, no one will trust either of them and it won’t matter who the nominee is.

Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/28/candidates-take-fire-over-ads-debate-trash-talk-in-final-florida-stretch/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/27/worst-is-yet-to-come-in-florida-contest/


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