Attacks on Mitt Romney have struggled to gain traction and he's continued to poll well. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, however, continue to contend with past misjudgments.
Over at Right Wing News, a former Ron Paul staffer wants to set the record straight - his former boss is not a racist and not an anti-Semite, but that he can be quite callous and decisive with his views:
I worked for the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once.Is Ron Paul an Anti-Semite? Absolutely No. As a Jew, (half on my mother’s side), I can categorically say that I never heard anything out of his mouth, in hundreds of speeches I listened too over the years, or in my personal presence that could be called, “Anti-Semite.” No slurs. No derogatory remarks.
He is however, most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all.
Paul's ex-staffer, Eric Dondero, wishes that more attention would be paid to Paul's actual views than the intolerance that was published under his name in his newsletters. That might be important - but the newsletters, if they don't speak to Paul's views, speak to his ability as a manager to effectively and responsibly hire subordinates.
Meanwhile, CNN has uncovered documents disputing Gingrich's telling of his first divorce.
Newt Gingrich claims that it was his first wife, not Gingrich himself, who wanted their divorce in 1980, but court documents obtained by CNN appear to show otherwise.Newt Gingrich filed a divorce complaint on July 14, 1980, in Carroll County, saying that "the marriage of the parties is irretriebably (sic) broken."
Jackie Battley Gingrich, the congressman's wife and the mother of Jackie Gingrich Cushman, responded by asking the judge to reject her husband's filing.
"Defendant shows that she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce, but that she does not desire one at this time," her petition said.
All the attention on his opponents' past baggage might have the Romney camp on the cocky side, as one aide displayed Gingrichian hubris in saying, "I don't see any scenario where we're not the nominee."
With just a week to go, Gingrich and Paul will be pulling out all the stops to get out of Iowa with a win over Romney, especially as, looking forward, Romney looks to be the presumptive winner in New Hampshire.
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