New Romney Ad: Hitting Gingrich Where It Hurts

Newt Gingrich has tried to brush off some of the skeletons in his political closet, portraying them as the ambitious mistakes of a now-wiser man: he lately characterized his climate change-loveseat moment with Nancy Pelosi as "the single dumbest thing I've done in recent years." But the gaffe that the Romney camp uses in their latest tv spot, Gingrich's "right-wing social engineering" comment referring to Paul Ryan's budget plan, is a little too recent for comfort, and highlights what I think is one of Gingrich's worst habits: his ceaseless attempts to look smarter than everybody, no matter who gets thrown under the bus. Newt is polling well in the early primary states, so the Romney camp is of course making moves to bring those numbers back down--this ad has got to sting a little for the Gingrich camp.