"You know, in South Carolina we were vastly outspent with negative ads attacking me and we stood back and spoke about President Obama and suffered the consequence of that," Romney told reporters outside his Tampa campaign headquarters.
Actually, that's false. Romney outspent Gingrich by a two-to-one ratio, but who cares about facts, Romney is using his imaginary history to justify his Florida tactics:
"I needed to make sure that instead of being outgunned in terms of attacks, that I responded aggressively — and hopefully that will have served me well here," Romney said when asked by a reporter what lesson he took from his defeat in South Carolina.On the cusp of victory in Florida, Romney says he came out swinging here to prevent Gingrich from "defining" him, positioning himself as an unwilling negative campaigner forced into attacking his rival because that's how it's done.
That's total baloney. The reason Mitt Romney has gone nuclear on Newt Gingrich is that Republicans don't really like him very much, and Gingrich is an easy target. Going negative is the only way for him to win.
But as much as Republicans may not like Mitt Romney, independents and Democrats like him even less. He won't be able to win a negative campaign against President Obama. And he certainly won't win on the strength of his convictions.
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