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Gingrich ad: Romney ‘can’t beat Obama’ because of healthcare
Mitt Romney “can’t beat Obama” because of the similarities in their healthcare laws, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said in a Web video Monday.
Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) have argued before that Romney won’t be able to draw a sharp contrast with President Obama on healthcare. The new ad, though, goes further than simply arguing that Gingrich would be stronger on the issue, and claims that Romney would lose a general-election match-up.
“Two men, same plan,” the ad’s narrator says. “Republicans ran against ObamaCare in 2010 and won. But how can we run against ObamaCare in 2012 if Republicans have to defend RomneyCare? And that’s why Mitt Romney can’t beat Obama.”
Obama’s national healthcare law was modeled largely on reforms that Romney signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. The Gingrich ad lists some of their common features, including a requirement that most people buy insurance as well as “big bureaucratic insurance exchanges.”
Exchanges and the mandate both started off as conservative ideas, but the mandate in particular has become anathema to the right after Obama’s healthcare law passed. Gingrich supported a mandate in the past, but he says now that he made a mistake.
The ad also shows former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty — now a Romney surrogate — lumping the two healthcare laws together under the name “ObamneyCare.”
Doubts about Romney’s ability to attack Obama on healthcare are hardly confined to the fledgling Gingrich campaign. Democrats say the bruising Republican primary has effectively taken the issue off the table for Romney, despite its power with the Republican base.
