Mitt Romney's biggest backer

Newt Gingrich unveiled perhaps the silliest slander of the campaign season Friday by mocking Mitt Romney’s ability to — Mon dieu! — utter a few words in halting French.
The 68-second attack ad tries to link Romney to his moderate Massachusetts political brethren and then takes a surreal turn when the narrator breathlessly intones “... and just like John Kerry, he speaks French.”
A clip of the 2004 Democratic nominee saying “Laissez les bons temps rouler” — “Let the good times roll,” the Mardi Gras slogan — is then followed by footage from 2002 of the current GOP front-runner introducing himself: “Bonjour. Je m'appelle Mitt Romney.”
That video was released as a promotion for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, for which Romney served as chief executive. English and French are the official languages of the Olympics.
The attack ad — which is dubbed “The French Connection” and also includes politically infamous images of former Bay State Governor Michael Dukakis in a tank and Kerry wind-surfing — was not funded by a Super PAC, but rather by the Gingrich campaign.
That means Gingrich — a former college professor who fancies himself as an intellectual — gave his approval for an ad that mocks the ability to speak a second language.
Gingrich has not always been such a Francophobe.
He lived in France for a few years as a teenager and has repeatedly compared himself to French World War II hero Charles de Gaulle.
The former House Speaker did, however, attempt to tone down one line of anti-Romney rhetoric by asking his Super PAC to cut out any errors in a documentary it purchased about Bain Capital.
“I’m calling on them to edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film,” said Gingrich, who said he could not coordinate with the Super PAC, but hoped they would heed his advice. “I've said all along that these Super PACs ought to have some sense of responsibility.”
Meanwhile, Romney maintained a slim lead over Gingrich in South Carolina in a poll released Friday afternoon. The ex-governor of Massachusetts was the choice of 29% of likely voters while Gingrich got the backing of 24%, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling.
Ron Paul followed with 15%, then Rick Santorum with 14%, Rick Perry with 6% and Jon Huntsman with 5%, according to the poll.


The Sunlight Foundation mined federal campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics and state campaign finance data from the National Institute for Money in Politics in producing its report. It also examined Internal Revenue Service filings from state-level 527 organizations as well as published reports of donors to Romney’s inaugural committee.
Romney, who enjoys commanding momentum in the GOP presidential nomination race, has nonetheless struggled to convince voters that he created jobs and economic opportunities for middle-class Americans during his Bain Capital tenure.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich roundly criticized Romney’s work at Bain, before largely dropping the issue after facing criticism himself for it.
Pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future, however, this week launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign in South Carolina that in part slams Romney’s Bain involvement, and it’s released a 27-minute documentary that highlights people who lost their jobs because of Bain shutting down their companies.
GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, meanwhile, has continued attacking Romney as engaging in “vulture capitalism” that would “destroy people’s lives” during his time at Bain.
But Romney has enjoyed support from broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, as well as former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who’ve painted attacks on Bain as being anti-capitalist.