Gingrich, Romney take jabs at GOP debate
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2011/12/gingrich-romney-take-jabs-at-gop-debate.html
It was a Saturday night brawl in Des Moines, with Republican rivals clubbing each other and front-runner Newt Gingrich, who batted back at criticisms that he once supported mandating purchase of health insurance and that he makes inflammatory remarks.
But despite withering criticism of Gingrich and to a lesser extent fellow national front-runner Mitt Romney, if anyone won the debate, it was Gingrich, said Iowa Republican strategist Richard Schwarm.
"He entered the debate with momentum and did not lose any momentum," Schwarm said. "Despite being the main target, he was not damaged."
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INTERACTIVE: Presidential poll tracker
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PHOTOS: Polls impact debate stage
One of the most memorable moments of the ABC News/Des Moines Register debate was when Romney bet Rick Perry he was wrong about what Romney had written about a national health care mandate.
"Rick, I'll tell you what: 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet?" Romney said, extending a hand for a handshake.
Perry stepped back, saying: "I'm not in the betting business."
"Romney may have hurt himself with his jaw-dropping $10,000 bet," Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, told the Register after the debate.
"Not too many average Americans can identify with a candidate who can casually risk ten grand on a whim."
It was mostly the bottom-tier candidates — Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum— vs. Gingrich and Romney.
Ron Paul lashed out, too, mostly against Gingrich.
Sharp clash over Palestinian remark
The two-hour event was marked with intense back-and-forth clashes, including one where Romney portrayed Gingrich as a bomb thrower, and Gingrich suggested Romney is timid.
"If I'm president of the United States," Romney said, "I will exercise sobriety, care, stability and make sure that in a setting like this that anything I say can affect a place with rockets going in, with people dying."
That was a reference to Gingrich's remark on Friday that Palestinians are "an invented" people, a comment that caused a tumultuous reaction in the Middle East.
"I'm not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally," Romney said.
Gingrich said: "I think sometimes it's helpful to have a president of the United States who has the courage to tell the truth. … I will tell the truth even at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid."
The fates of the candidates have hinged on debates as the predominant platform for Iowans to judge them — not one-on-one living room and town hall conversations, which have been the legendary pattern of previous caucus campaigns.
This was the 12th GOP debate of this election cycle, and there's just one more debate (on Thursday in Sioux City) before the jury is sequestered over the holidays.
The first votes in the presidential nominating contest are cast in just 23 days.
In The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll late last month, fully 71% of likely Republican caucusgoers didn't have a first choice or said they still could be persuaded to choose someone else.
Gingrich, who stood at the top of the poll, beat back the predicted wave of attacks with a smile. (His granddaughter has said he doesn't smile enough.)
Bachmann goes on lengthy attack
A feisty Bachmann, in an effort to regain some of the ground she has lost since her Iowa straw poll victory, dished out fresh ideas, including her own version of Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan.
She said she'll call it the "win-win-win" jobs plan: abolish the tax code, legalize American energy production and cut government bureaucracy.
And Bachmann unveiled a new candidate she dubbed "Newt Romney," to highlight the ways Romney and Gingrich are less conservative than she is.
In a fiery litany, she said: "If you look at Newt Romney, they were for Obamacare principles. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for cap and trade.
"If you look at Newt Romney, they were for the illegal immigration problem. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for the $700 billion bailout, and you just heard Newt Romney is also with Obama on the issue of the payroll (tax cut) extension."
Romney dismissed Bachmann with a joke. "Newt Gingrich is a friend of mine, but he and I are not clones," he said.
"Michele, you know, a lot of what you say just isn't true. Period," Gingrich shot back. "It's important that you be accurate when you say these things."
Gingrich defended his former support for requiring most Americans to have health insurance, saying conservatives saw the mandate as better than adopting Hillary Clinton's 1990s reforms, and added that he now thinks such a mandate would be ineffective and unconstitutional, he said.
Paul, who finished second in the Register's late November Iowa Poll, criticized Gingrich for having "been on so many positions on so many issues."
Gingrich jabbed over moon remarks
Romney, asked to state differences between his positions and Gingrich's, ridiculed Gingrich's proposals for the space program.
"We can start with … his idea to have a colony that would mine minerals from the moon. I'm not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that," he said as the crowd laughed.
Gingrich shot back: "I'm proud of trying to find things that give young people a reason to study science, math and technology. … I grew up in the generation where the space program was real, where it was important and where frankly it is tragic that NASA has been so bureaucratized."
The infighting reached even beyond the race leaders.
Romney slammed Perry, who sits in the bottom tier in the polls.
"I wanted to give people health insurance. You wanted to give young girls a vaccine. There are differences," Romney said.
The debate, which was sponsored by ABC News, The Des Moines Register, Yahoo, WOI-TV and Republican Party of Iowa, took place at Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus.
But despite withering criticism of Gingrich and to a lesser extent fellow national front-runner Mitt Romney, if anyone won the debate, it was Gingrich, said Iowa Republican strategist Richard Schwarm.
"He entered the debate with momentum and did not lose any momentum," Schwarm said. "Despite being the main target, he was not damaged."
*
INTERACTIVE: Presidential poll tracker
*
PHOTOS: Polls impact debate stage
One of the most memorable moments of the ABC News/Des Moines Register debate was when Romney bet Rick Perry he was wrong about what Romney had written about a national health care mandate.
"Rick, I'll tell you what: 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet?" Romney said, extending a hand for a handshake.
Perry stepped back, saying: "I'm not in the betting business."
"Romney may have hurt himself with his jaw-dropping $10,000 bet," Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, told the Register after the debate.
"Not too many average Americans can identify with a candidate who can casually risk ten grand on a whim."
It was mostly the bottom-tier candidates — Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum— vs. Gingrich and Romney.
Ron Paul lashed out, too, mostly against Gingrich.
Sharp clash over Palestinian remark
The two-hour event was marked with intense back-and-forth clashes, including one where Romney portrayed Gingrich as a bomb thrower, and Gingrich suggested Romney is timid.
"If I'm president of the United States," Romney said, "I will exercise sobriety, care, stability and make sure that in a setting like this that anything I say can affect a place with rockets going in, with people dying."
That was a reference to Gingrich's remark on Friday that Palestinians are "an invented" people, a comment that caused a tumultuous reaction in the Middle East.
"I'm not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally," Romney said.
Gingrich said: "I think sometimes it's helpful to have a president of the United States who has the courage to tell the truth. … I will tell the truth even at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid."
The fates of the candidates have hinged on debates as the predominant platform for Iowans to judge them — not one-on-one living room and town hall conversations, which have been the legendary pattern of previous caucus campaigns.
This was the 12th GOP debate of this election cycle, and there's just one more debate (on Thursday in Sioux City) before the jury is sequestered over the holidays.
The first votes in the presidential nominating contest are cast in just 23 days.
In The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll late last month, fully 71% of likely Republican caucusgoers didn't have a first choice or said they still could be persuaded to choose someone else.
Gingrich, who stood at the top of the poll, beat back the predicted wave of attacks with a smile. (His granddaughter has said he doesn't smile enough.)
Bachmann goes on lengthy attack
A feisty Bachmann, in an effort to regain some of the ground she has lost since her Iowa straw poll victory, dished out fresh ideas, including her own version of Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan.
She said she'll call it the "win-win-win" jobs plan: abolish the tax code, legalize American energy production and cut government bureaucracy.
And Bachmann unveiled a new candidate she dubbed "Newt Romney," to highlight the ways Romney and Gingrich are less conservative than she is.
In a fiery litany, she said: "If you look at Newt Romney, they were for Obamacare principles. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for cap and trade.
"If you look at Newt Romney, they were for the illegal immigration problem. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for the $700 billion bailout, and you just heard Newt Romney is also with Obama on the issue of the payroll (tax cut) extension."
Romney dismissed Bachmann with a joke. "Newt Gingrich is a friend of mine, but he and I are not clones," he said.
"Michele, you know, a lot of what you say just isn't true. Period," Gingrich shot back. "It's important that you be accurate when you say these things."
Gingrich defended his former support for requiring most Americans to have health insurance, saying conservatives saw the mandate as better than adopting Hillary Clinton's 1990s reforms, and added that he now thinks such a mandate would be ineffective and unconstitutional, he said.
Paul, who finished second in the Register's late November Iowa Poll, criticized Gingrich for having "been on so many positions on so many issues."
Gingrich jabbed over moon remarks
Romney, asked to state differences between his positions and Gingrich's, ridiculed Gingrich's proposals for the space program.
"We can start with … his idea to have a colony that would mine minerals from the moon. I'm not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that," he said as the crowd laughed.
Gingrich shot back: "I'm proud of trying to find things that give young people a reason to study science, math and technology. … I grew up in the generation where the space program was real, where it was important and where frankly it is tragic that NASA has been so bureaucratized."
The infighting reached even beyond the race leaders.
Romney slammed Perry, who sits in the bottom tier in the polls.
"I wanted to give people health insurance. You wanted to give young girls a vaccine. There are differences," Romney said.
The debate, which was sponsored by ABC News, The Des Moines Register, Yahoo, WOI-TV and Republican Party of Iowa, took place at Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus.
