FORT MYERS, Fla. — One of these days, Newt!
With Florida voters set to go to the polls today, Mitt Romney fired a moon shot at rival Newt Gingrich on the eve of the primary, ridiculing the former House speaker’s futuristic plans for a lunar colony.
“Send him to the moon!” Romney said at a campaign rally yesterday.
Romney then ripped “the idea of the moon as the 51st state” — another far-fetched futuristic vision dreamed up by Gingrich as “not one that’s come to my mind.”
Mitt’s “Honeymooners”-esque attacks — made a few weeks after he mockingly compared Gingrich to an episode of “I Love Lucy” where Lucille Ball gets swamped at a chocolate factory — showed Romney hasn’t backed off his weeklong attacks, even with his poll advantage.
A Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday gives Romney a 14-point lead, 43-29. It also shows Romney winning in categories that might be expected to go Gingrich’s way. Romney wins conservatives, 40-31, evangelical Christians, 38-33, and Tea Party members, 40-35.
The surge comes after Romney and his allies gave Gingrich a pounding on the TV airwaves, outspending him more than 4-to-1.
But Gingrich continued to draw big crowds here as he did all last week, with a “people power against money power” message laced with vows to take on “elites” and the GOP establishment.
At a rally in Fort Myers, filled with Gulf Coast retirees, Gingrich singled out New York-based bailout beneficiaries Goldman Sachs and AIG, vowing to “fundamentally change New York. We deserve to know the truth about the last four years. We deserve to know what happened to our money.”
And he raised the heat on Romney, tagging him as a “liberal” after weeks of referring to him a “Massachusetts moderate.”
“In the long run, the Republican Party is not going to nominate the founder of Romneycare, a liberal Republican who is pro-abortion, pro-gun control and pro-tax increases,” Gingrich said. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
“I don’t see how a Massachusetts liberal is going to do better than the moderates we nominated in 1996 and 2008,” Gingrich said. He said Romney had “no clue” what Ronald Reagan stood for.
Gingrich, who has come under attack from former members of Reagan’s adminstration, got a lift yesterday when he was introduced by Reagan’s son, Michael, who described Gingrich as the heir to his dad’s legacy.
“Newt Gingrich has been there for the Republican Party and for Republicans since I can remember,” Reagan said.
Stealing a move from Romney’s playbook, Rick Tyler, who runs a pro-Gingrich super PAC, went to Romney’s campaign events yesterday to bash Romney, and promised a long campaign.
“That’s why they’re trying to carpet-bomb us here in Florida,” Tyler said. “They’re trying to end this thing. But it’s not going to end.”