Gingrich Says He Tried to Warn Romney About Going Negative

Newt Gingrich says he tried to warn Mitt Romney that negative ads were not the way to run a campaign and the former House speaker has been around a long time and knows how to play that game as well. The presidential hopeful also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday Romney’s accusations that he is against capitalism are absurd — he is just opposed to the type of “free market” where people lose their jobs.  
 

“I wanted it be positive — I ran a campaign being positive — I emerged out of nowhere being positive,” Gingrich said. “Frankly I tried to warn Governor Romney and I said, over and over for two solid weeks: This is not a good idea — this is not a campaign we want to get into. And he kept coming back and saying that, you know, I need to develop broad shoulders, and if I couldn’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.

“Well, I’ve been doing this for a long, long time and I’m quite capable of doing what needs to be done — he has set the terms of the campaign,” Gingrich said. “I’m not going to run the kind of negative dishonest ads that his super PAC did — one of which got four Pinocchios from The Washington Post: it means they had four falsehoods in the 30-second ad, which takes real effort.”

Hannity asked about the former Massachusetts governor’s accusation that Gingrich is against capitalism because of his attacks on Romney’s tenure at the investment firm Bain Capital.

“Baloney — I’m for capitalism — I’m for honest entrepreneurs investing, I'm for people creating businesses. Now, Callista and I have created four small businesses in the last decade — I get it,” Gingrich said. “But I’m not for looting. There’s a company in The Wall Street Journal today that Bain put $30 million into, took $180 million out of, and the company went bankrupt.

“I think there’s a real difference between people who believe in the free market and people who go around, take financial advantage, loot companies, leave behind broken families, broken towns, people on unemployment,” he said. “And I think Governor Romney in the next week or so is going to have to hold a press conference and he’s going to have to walk the country through the things that they did at Bain — because in three or four cases, they don’t look like capitalism: They look like rich guys looting companies, taking all the cash, and leaving behind all the unemployed. That’s not the kind of free market I want to be part of.”