POMPANO BEACH, Fla. - Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich traded nasty accusations over character, consistency and leadership as one day remained before Florida's critical primary vote on Tuesday and Romney held a strong lead.
In what has become a wildly unpredictable race to win the party's nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in November, the former Massachusetts governor was going all out to crush Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives who has risen more than once -- including last week -- to lead in polls.
"You can sense that it's going our way," Romney told reporters. Gingrich claimed he's gaining ground and will stay in the race until summer.
Romney has fought back with aggressive debate performances in Florida, and an NBC News/Marist poll published Sunday showed him with support from 42 per cent of likely Florida primary voters, compared with 27 per cent for Gingrich. But after a crushing defeat by Gingrich earlier this month in South Carolina, Romney appeared as if he was trying to deflate Gingrich's candidacy and assure a leading role for good.
So far, the three states that have held primaries or caucuses have picked three different winners. Florida, the largest and most diverse state to vote so far, could make the front-runner clear, especially with just four candidates remaining and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul trailing.
Gingrich has been fighting back with his own now-customary invective, attacking Romney for "carpet-bombing with negative ads." Gingrich continues to be sensitive to the millions of dollars that an independent so-called "super political action committee" that supports Romney has been spending on ads. Gingrich trails Romney in such financial firepower as well.
Gingrich said Monday that the "amazing amount of ads" won't work. "I think he's going to find this a long campaign."
Romney has not been not letting up. Instead of stepping back and refocusing on Obama as hedid earlier, the enormously wealthy former venture capitalistis turning up his rhetoric. He hopes to close the Florida campaign strongly and to push Gingrich as far back as possible.
Both Gingrich and Romney are trying to win the conservative Republican base and go after Obama, who remains vulnerable as the country tries to recover from the Great Recession. But the Republican base has been slow to embrace Romney because of his past stances on some social issues such as health care, and Gingrich carries a reputation of being hotheaded and at times undisciplined.
Aides say Romney's attacks are partially a response to increasingly angry rhetoric from Gingrich, who on Sunday called Romney "somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase liberal."Gingrich also accused Romney of lying.
Romney's campaign on fired back immediately, using statements from top surrogates who cast Gingrich of unfair attacks.
"Mitt Romney is man of impeccable character," said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
In earlier political campaigns, Romney had vowed to protect a woman's right to end an unwanted pregnancy. He also has switched positions on gay rights and pushed through a health care reform law in Massachusetts that became a template for the Obama overhaul of the system nationally.
Given Romney's shaky support among conservatives, Gingrich vowed he would stay in the contest until the party national convention in late August.
Former Pennsylvania senator Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, skipped campaigning to be with his 3-year-old daughter, was hospitalized. He planned to campaign in Missouri and Minnesota early this week.
Gingrich's allies urged Santorum to get out of the race to clear the way for conservatives to consolidate support behind the former House speaker.
Texas Rep. Paul, who has invested little in Florida, looked ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.
