In her effort to portray herself as the most consistent conservative of the Republican presidential candidates, Michele Bachmann is using a new phrase to tie together the two front-runners and question their respective ideologies, referring to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney collectively as ‘Newt Romney.’
During Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate, the Bachmann campaign put out three press releases alleging ‘Newt Romney’s’ past support for health insurance individual mandates, cap and trade policies and the bank bailout. Bachmann contends that both of the front-runners supported these policies, while she has always opposed them.
Bachmann has been trying for months to make the argument that she can be the candidate conservatives can trust with the Republican presidential nomination. With polls showing Gingrich now receiving most of that support, and Mitt Romney retaining the support of establishment Republicans, Bachmann is going after both candidates for what she says are inconsistencies in their records.
For what it’s worth, PolitiFact rated three relevant statements from the debate Saturday night: they gave Bachmann a “pants on fire” rating for saying Romney supported socialized medicine while governor of Massachusetts and a “mostly true” rating for saying Gingrich advocated an individual mandate, and they gave Gingrich a “false” rating for insisting he opposed cap and trade.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.
Bachmannn must be a challenge for Politifact.
Most of her statements are so vague that it’s hard to tell if they’re true or not!