Gingrich, Romney continue to spar over Reagan ties

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney continued sparring Friday over which candidate better represented the legacy of former President Reagan, with dueling conference calls from former White House officials who served with the conservative icon.

Rich Williamson, a foreign policy adviser in the Reagan White House, accused Gingrich of overstating his importance in helping to shepherd the Reagan agenda through Congress.

"It was an honor and a privilege to serve with President Reagan, to know him, and to support his transformational presidency. And we see in Mitt Romney many of the same characteristics of a steady hand, reliability, consistency," Williamson said in a conference call with reporters. "And I think that Speaker Gingrich, by exaggerating his role in the Reagan Revolution, evinces an effort to be grandiose and for political reasons, try to overstate the role he played in supporting Ronald Reagan. He was a backbencher. He took opportunities to criticize President Reagan’s efforts to the four of us, who all were involved in foreign policy matters and defense matters."

But Gingrich surrogates blasted back later Friday, with Reagan biographer Craig Shirley dismissing Williamson as "never a Reaganite."

"You cannot call Rich Williamson a Reaganite in any way, shape, or form," Shirley said.

Reagan national security adviser Bud McFarlane defended Gingrich's role in supporting Reagan's presidency.

"At the time Congressman Gingrich was a very vocal and enthusiastic contributor to the economic strategies of the Reagan administration," McFarlane said, who described the former Speaker as an "enthusiastic supporter" and "reliable voice" of Reagan.

The competing calls play a criticism from the Romney campaign that Gingrich has overblown his ties to the former president, noting in a recent GOP debate that Gingrich was mentioned only once in the Reagan diaries. Romney was asked about his comments during Thursday's debate, but avoided attacking Gingrich head-on.

"With regards to the Speaker's involvement in the Reagan years, he can speak for himself. The Reagan Diaries and the other histories that were written at that time can lay that out as well," Romney said.

But Gingrich decried the Romney "attack machine" and reiterated his ties to the former president.

"I think it's reasonable to say, and I think the governor said it fairly, I am vastly closer to Reagan. In that period the governor was an independent business person. In '92 he was donating to the Democrats for Congress and voted for Paul Tsongas in the Democratic primary. In '94 running against Teddy Kennedy, he said flatly, I don't want to go back to the Reagan-Bush era, I was an independent," Gingrich said.

So there's a pretty wide gap. Now, he's more mature. He's more conservative, I accept that. I think it's a good thing. But those of us who were in the trenches fighting in the '80s, it would be nice to be recognized for what we actually did and not to have orchestrated attacks to try to distort the history of that period."

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