'A Talk Show Host, Not a Leader' ... Romney Spits Brutal Anti-Gingrich Screed

 

“Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “He was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. And at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that, he actually resigned after four years, in disgrace.

Romney continued: “He was investigated over an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans,
88 percent of his Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.”
Then Romney got into Gingrich’s post-congressional career.

“Over the last 15 years since he left the House, he talks about great bold movements and ideas,” he told the crowd of several hundred people gathered at a building materials company here. “Well, what’s he been doing for 15 years? He’s been working as a lobbyist, yeah, he’s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington.”

To cap the riff, Romney brought it back to Florida’s depressed housing market, and the role Freddie Mac, for which Gingrich worked, played in the real estate crash here. And he renewed his demand that Gingrich release records of the work he did for the housing lender.

“What was his work product there? What was he doing at Freddie Mac?
Because Freddie Mac figures in very prominently in the fact that people in Florida have seen home values go down – it’s time to turn that around!”

“We’re not choosing a talk show host, all right? We’re choosing a leader, we’re choosing the person who should be the leader of the free world,” Romney said.