(Original photos: Mike Segar, Lucas Jackson and Chris Keane/Reuters)
Hahahaha:
Amid calls from Republican leaders to back off criticism of Mitt Romney for deals he made at Bain Capital, Newt Gingrich defended the attacks and called on Mr. Romney to provide more details about corporate buyouts that led to bankruptcies.
He accused “extraordinarily wealthy institutions” of bringing pressure on him to rescind the criticism, and said they were telling him, “You’d better shut up.’’
Of course, no Republicans on Wall Street are actually afraid of Newt Gingrich or the way he would govern—if anything, he'd be a weaker regulator than Mitt Romney. The only reason the establishment wants him to shut up is they know the line of attack he's pursuing will be damaging to Mitt Romney in the general election and they don't want him roughing up their golden boy.
Newt could care less about what they want, however. South Carolina is his last chance to stop Mitt Romney and this issue is his best hope to do it. PPP will be out with new numbers tomorrow, but so far, it looks like Gingrich is getting a boost from his Romney attack. If that holds up, don't expect him to to stop anytime soon.