The race for the Republican presidential nomination entered an aggressive new phase as Mitt Romney launched an ad inviting comparisons between his personal life and his main rival Newt Gingrich, a thrice-married religious convert.
Though the ad did not name Gingrich, the sharper tone marked a shift away from policydifferences and toward character distinctions.
It comes as Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has surged past Romney, a former Massachusetts Governor, in many polls with less than a month to go before the Iowa caucuses, the first Republican nominating contest.
The ad, featuring home videos of his wife and five sons, painted him as a strong family, church and business leader. "I'm a man of steadiness and constancy. I don't think you're going to find somebody who has more of those attributes than I do," Romney says.
His critics, however, have long pointed out Romney's equivocations and policy reversals.
Also yesterday, in an effort to revive his campaign, Texas Governor Rick Perry launched an ambitious effort to compete against Gingrich for the support of Christian evangelicals by emphasising his Christianity in a flood of new commercials in Iowa.
As the January 3 Iowa caucuses approach, Gingrich is getting a second look from Republican voters. Polls suggest conservatives are starting to conclude they may have to embrace Gingrich despite his blemishes if they want to stop Romney.
