The gloves are really off in the Republican presidential campaign now. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney likened his rival, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to the late, great comedienne Lucille Ball.
At a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday, Romney made fun of Gingrich’s failure to qualify for the Virginia ballot and the statement of Gingrich’s campaign director Michael Krull afterward, the
National Journal reported. "Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941 [Pearl Harbor]," Krull said. "We have experienced an unexpected setback, but we will regroup and refocus with increased determination, commitment, and positive action."
Romney’s take on the affair, according to the National Journal: “I think he compared that to Pearl Harbor? I think it’s more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory,” he said. “You’ve got to get it organized." Romney was referring to a classic skit in “I Love Lucy,” in which Ball was flummoxed by a fast assembly line of candy.
In another campaign appearance -- in Londonderry, N.H. -- Romney accused Gingrich of flip-flopping, citing a 2008 speech in which he praised Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare reform and its central plank of the individual health insurance mandate, National Journal reports.
“I'm familiar with the fact that he supported individual mandates in the past and was supportive generally of the plan in Massachusetts, and he's changed his view in the election year," Romney said.
In response, Gingrich said Romney is ducking one-on-one debates. “He's buying millions of dollars in attack ads ... paid for by his millionaire friends,” Gingrich said on CNN. “Now, I'd like to have him have the courage to be on the same stage and defend his ads and explain his record of raising taxes . . . and, frankly, explain why he wasn't a job-creating governor.”
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