With only two days left before a crucial Florida primary, US Republican presidential candidates square off on television talk shows Sunday, trying to secure support from key constituencies and filling the airwaves with hard-hitting campaign ads. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul scheduled TV appearances Sunday while frontrunner Mitt Romney tried to kill off top rival Gingrich's campaign by unleashing a campaign ad state-wide.
Romney - leading handily in the polls - sought to sweep away the largest obstacle to him winning the party nomination, hitting Gingrich over past ethics violations and dramatically calling into question his integrity.
After a feisty debate performance on Thursday, Romney is in the ascendancy in Florida with just three days to go before Tuesday's primary. According to poll averages, the former governor of Massachusetts and multimillionaire venture capitalist leads in the sprawling Sunshine state with 39 percent against 31 percent for Gingrich, the former House of Representatives speaker.
Former Pennsylvania senator Santorum and Texas congressman Paul trail the field with 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Time is running out for Gingrich to claw back some lost ground in a race that could prove pivotal in deciding who faces President Barack Obama in November.
If Gingrich loses in Florida his path to the nomination is far from clear. But his campaign got a boost late Saturday when he received an endorsement from a former rival for the nomination, pizza magnate Herman Cain.
"It is time for conservatives and Republicans to refocus their attention on the ultimate mission of defeating President Obama," Cain said, introducing Gingrich at a Republican dinner in West Palm Beach, Florida. "I believe Speaker Gingrich is the bold leader we need to accomplish this mission." Cain dropped out of the race in December, after several women accused him of improper sexual advances. Trying to rally support, Gingrich showcased his conservative credentials, arguing that only a true conservative like himself has a chance to beat Obama in November. "We nominated a moderate in 96 and we lost," he said campaigning in Orlando. "We nominated a moderate in 2008 and we lost. Only a solid conservative can debate Barack Obama and win."
But trying to seize on his rival's precarious position, Romney's ad uses television news footage from 1997 when Gingrich was reprimanded by a House ethics committee. It shows only iconic news anchor Tom Brokaw reporting that "by an overwhelming vote" Republicans and Democrats in Congress had found Gingrich "guilty of ethics violations" and "raised serious questions about his future effectiveness."
Gingrich was accused of dozens of violations, including a claim of tax-exempt status for his college course. However, NBC's legal department asked the Romney campaign on Saturday to remove NBC News content from the ad. And Brokaw, in a statement, said he was "extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."
A Romney campaign official refused to disclose the exact amount spent on the ad, but said "it's running state-wide, it's a heavy buy. It's a heavy buy." The Gingrich campaign described the ad as "another big lie" from Romney's team.
"What the Romney campaign is hoping the American people don't remember is that in 1999, the IRS cleared speaker Gingrich of the substance of the ethics committee investigation," his campaign said.
The two men barnstormed Florida in the closing days of a bitter race for the biggest state yet in the Republican nominating contest. On Saturday, Romney sought to harden his conservative credentials by doling out a thumping to Obama in front of a Pensacola crowd peppered with military veterans, painting the president's foreign policy as buckling to US enemies.