Gingrich, left and Romney, right, in happier times (Paul Sancya/AP)
Say goodbye to the back-patting, the shout-outs, and the unified front against President Obama: It's time for the Republican field to go negative.
This week appeared to mark the informal start of the negative phase of the 2012 GOP nomination fight, with candidates bypassing the largely harmonious tone of the early stages of the race, and starting simply to go for the jugular.
"Newt Gingrich has a long record of liberal appeasement, flip-flopping on key issues, and lobbying for insider millions," Texas Rep. Ron Paul wrote in an email to supporters Wednesday touting an online video attacking the former House Speaker on multiple fronts as a "counterfeit conservative."
"This candidate was for the individual mandate that served as the model for 'ObamaCare.'? He was originally for the TARP bank bailouts before he was against them. He joined with Nancy Pelosi to promote the anti-business 'global warming' agenda," Paul wrote.
Paul may have clashed with Gingrich on stage in several recent debates, but the ad represents the first targeted attack against the candidate, who is regarded as a major contender in both the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire and in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa. Iowa holds its vote in less than five weeks.
You can watch Paul's anti-Gingrich video below:
Meanwhile, former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman was preoccupied with Mitt Romney this week, blasting the former Massachusetts governor during a public appearance in the key voting state of New Hampshire.
"Anyone who is in the hip pocket of Wall Street because of all the donations they are picking up, like Mr. Romney, is in these days not going to be the change agent who is going to fix the too-big-to-fail banking system," Huntsman told an audience Monday night.
And Huntsman didn't stop there.
He followed up with a web video Thursday using an interview Romney gave to Fox News Wednesday night to depict Romney as a flip-flopper (a line of attack the Democratic National Committee helped fuel Monday with its own anti-Romney ad.)
You can watch Huntsman's video about Romney below:
Gingrich also went after Romney on the "flip-flopper" front, defending the DNC's negative ad campaign. "Part of it is the way he did some of it," Gingrich told CNN's John King in reference to Romney's record.?"I think it is legitimate," he said of the attack.
And Romney himself did some particularly pointed attacking of his own this week, going so far as to brand Gingrich a "lifelong politician."
For many of these 2012 candidates, this level of attack is unprecedented so far in the race. But some analysts say that the surface comity of the field thus far speaks more to the candidates' effort to appear united more than anything.
"It's been an unusually positive race up until this point," Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak told Yahoo News Thursday. Mackowiak said the race's fluidity has helped keep things on the civil side, because different candidates were falling out of favor each week on their own in the absence of attacks.
But observers suggest that now candidates are desperate to control the conversation as the field gears up for the first nominating contests. Negative campaigning allows them to do just that.
"It's not some newspaper's choice. It's your choice," Mackowiak said of the attack strategy. He also noted that candidates "can also choose the field upon which battle is being fought" and select an attack topic tailored to give them a competitive advantage.
And don't expect anyone to revert back to their nicer former selves, Mackowiak warned. "We are now in the window of time when voters make decisions," he said. For some candidates, attacks represent "the only way to impact the outcome."
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