Gloves come off in GOP debate

Gloves come off in GOP debate: DES MOINES, Iowa – On the campus of Drake University tonight, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich found themselves under fire, scrambling to defend their records from a feisty group of challengers.

Michele Bachmann ripped the lid off the can of worms by challenging inconsistencies in the records of Romney and Gingrich – who are leading in most national polls – while lumping the two candidates together as "Newt-Romney."

"When you look at Newt Gingrich, for 20 years, he's been advocating for the individual mandate in health care. That's longer than Barack Obama," Bachmann said. "Or if you look at Mitt Romney as the governor of Massachusetts, he's the only governor that put into place socialized medicine."

Then she began perhaps the night's most memorable monologue: "If you look at Newt-Romney, they were for Obamacare principles. If you look at Newt-Romney, they were for cap and trade. If you look at Newt-Romney, they [were] for the illegal immigration problem. And if you look at Newt-Romney, they were for the $700-billion bailout. And you just heard Newt-Romney is also with Obama on the issue of the payroll extension.

"So if you want a difference, Michele Bachmann is the proven conservative," she concluded. "It's not Newt-Romney."


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