Top Gingrich backer warns him to stop Romney attacks

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), a longtime friend of Newt Gingrich who is backing his presidential campaign, warned the former House Speaker to focus on President Obama rather than tear down Mitt Romney.

“When Newt was being successful in these debates, he was running against Obama. He needs to continue to do that and run against Obama, lay out for the Republican primary voters how he is going to expose Obama and not beating up on Mitt for his business,” Westmoreland told The Hill. “It’s been hurting both of them. We need to kind of get over that. Romney accusing Newt of being a lobbyist and Newt accusing Romney of being some type of robber of the poor. I think those are both bad things for them to say to each other.”

{mosads}Westmoreland said that he agreed with Rick Santorum’s comment in Thursday night’s debate that the two front-runners needed to stop ripping each other’s records and refocus on the president

“At the end of the day, one of us is going to be running against Obama, and we need to be laying out a history of our country, not giving history lessons about what each other did in the past,” Westmoreland said. “We’re worried too much about each other. We need to be concentrating on him.”

Gingrich and Romney have upped their personal attacks on each other and showed a new level of bile toward one another in Thursday’s debate. On Friday, Gingrich released an ad saying that Romney would “mislead, distort and deceive just to win an election.”

The Georgia congressman is one of nine members of Congress who are
backing Gingrich; Romney has 73 members of Congress in his corner. Westmoreland
reiterated his support for his fellow Georgian but pointed out
some of his flaws. 

“Newt’s like any of the rest of us. We’ve done things we’re awfully proud of and we’ve done things we know now we shouldn’t have done,” Westmoreland said when asked about some of Gingrich’s past positions. 

“He’s got problems like the rest of us, but he’s got some great attributes too. One of those is a mixed thing — he has more ideas than anybody I’ve ever seen, but his record of taking those ideas and implementing them is probably not very good, which is a negative … but he has come up with some solutions that are real.”

Westmoreland said that despite his flaws, Gingrich would be the strongest candidate to take on Obama in the fall. “Regardless of some of the silly stuff he’s done, like being on a sofa with [Democratic Rep. Nancy] Pelosi, is he’s the guy people want to see carry the charge to Obama,” he said. “I think Romney would take Obama to a pillow fight. [Sen. John] McCain took him to the prom. Gingrich is someone who would bring him to a knife fight.”