Gingrich Sharpens Attacks On Romney, Paul

So much for staying positive.

In just the last 24 hours, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has blasted rival Mitt Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate” who isn’t “man enough” to take responsibility for the harsh attack ads being run on his behalf. And he lambasted Ron Paul’s views as “totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.”

As his lead in Iowa polls has evaporated, Gingrich’s rhetoric has grown ever sharper, even as he insists — sometimes in the same breath — that he’s running a positive campaign.

“I am not going to go negative, period,” Gingrich said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Dyersville, Iowa, to appreciative murmurs from the crowd that had crammed into the National Farm Toy Museum to hear him speak. That remark came after a CNN interview in which he said he wouldn’t vote for Paul if the Texas congressman became the GOP nominee and he mocked Romney for not having the courage to face him in a one-on-one debate.

It is classic Gingrich, the bomb-throwing leader of the Republican revolution who even now seems to chafe at minding his manners. He acknowledged Tuesday that it has taken “discipline” not to counterpunch as the attacks have flooded in.

Read More at OfficialWire By Shannon Mccaffrey, OfficialWire