Following SC Loss, Mitt Heads to Florida to Attack Gingrich's Record as Speaker: 'He Resigned after Four Years in Disgrace

Since finishing a fairly distant second to Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina Republican primary Saturday, and having his Iowa win negated last week, an agressive Mitt Romney has been on the move in Florida. ABC News reports that the former Massachusetts governor attacked the resurgent Gingrich at a rally in Ormond Beach Sunday:

“'Now Speaker Gingrich is also a leader,' said Romney, speaking to a rally of hundreds in the parking lot of a building supply warehouse. 'He was a leader for four years, as speaker of the House. At the end of four years it was proven that he was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace.

'I don’t know if you actually knew that,' Romney said. 'He resigned after four years in disgrace. He was investigated under an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.”

Romney supporter Chris Christie made similar remarks about the former Speaker during an appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, where the New Jersey governor said that Gingrich has already "embarrassed the party."

The Associated Press reports that Romney's campaign is pressing reset:

"Romney now turns to Florida at what is possibly the most critical moment of his campaign, after two weeks of sustained attacks from his opponents and a series of self-inflicted errors that erased any notion that he would be able to lock up the nomination quickly by winning this state's Jan. 31 primary.

'I'm looking forward to a long campaign,' Romney said on Fox News. 'We are selecting the president of the United States. Someone who is going to face ups and downs and real challenges, and I hope that through this process, I can demonstrate that I can take a setback and come back strong.'"

Romney announced during his Fox News Sunday interview that he will release his tax returns for 2010 on Tuesday, along with an estimate for his 2011 returns. Romney's campaign has been criticized for their handling of the issue, lacking clarity in a response and seeming unprepared for such a request.

“We made a mistake holding off as long as we did,“ Romney said. He defended his previously stated decision to hold off on releasing them until April, but told host Chris Wallace that the issue had become a distraction on the campaign trail.

Back on the offensive in Florida Sunday evening, POLITICO reports that Romney is now calling Gingrich "a failure and a fraud:"

"To cap the riff, Romney brought it back to Florida’s depressed housing market, and the role Freddie Mac, for which Gingrich worked, played in the real estate crash here. And he continued hisdemand that Gingrich release records of the work he did for the housing lender.

'He’s been working for Freddie Mac, heard of those guys? He said he’s been a historian. I would like him to release his records. What was his work product there? What was he doing at Freddie Mac? Because Freddie Mac figures in very prominently in the fact that people in Florida have seen home values go down – it’s time to turn that around!'”

AP notes that Romney's strategy on display in Florida shows that he has begun contrasting his experience as a businessman and governor, to the experiences of Gingrich in Congress and as an advisor inside the beltway. Romney has been poking at Gingrich's character by raising questions about the ethics investigation against Gingrich in the 1990s, when he was House speaker, and suggested that the former Georgia lawmaker was hiding something by refusing to release reams of documents he apparently gave to investigators back then.

AP reports that when Romney was asked Sunday whether character would become an issue, Romney said, "No question."

"Leadership is the key attribute that people should look for in considering a president," Romney said, "and character is a big part of leadership, as is vision, sobriety, steadiness."