Newt Gingrich called on Iowa caucus-goers on Tuesday night to vote for someone who has run a positive campaign -- and refuse to vote for anyone who has run negative ads.
"We have run a relentlessly positive campaign. Our ads have been positive. The speeches have been positive," Gingrich said. "You have a chance tonight to send a signal to America that the consultant-driven, viciously negative campaigns are totally wrong for this year when America is in these kind of problems, and you can do that by refusing to vote for anyone who has run negative ads, and you can insist on voting for someone who has been positive."
Gingrich was indirectly referring to ads taken out by a super PAC supporting challenger Mitt Romney spending about $3 million on negative ads in Iowa attacking him. Gingrich called Romney a "liar" earlier in the day for insisting he had no role in the barrage of negative ads.
Gingrich also said Washington is "too complicated" for an "amateur" in politics.
"We've had three years of an amateur.... The problems are too hard," he said. "Second, I ask you to consider who can stand up to Obama's billion dollar campaign, meet him in debate in October and decisively repudiate his policies, his principles, his values and his ideas and win despite every smear, every attack and every distortion which you know their billion dollar campaign will launch. I suggest to you given the debates you've seen I would come far closer to being able to decisively outline who he is and defeat him."
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