Candidates seek votes one day before South Carolina primary

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

GILBERT, S.C. – After dismissing public requests for his income tax returns, Mitt Romney this afternoon called on Newt Gingrich to release potentially damaging records from a congressional ethics report, part of a multi-pronged effort to criticize the former House speaker on the eve of the South Carolina primary.

The sharpened attacks from the former Massachusetts governor came even as he downplayed his chances in tomorrow’s primary, saying, “I think I said from the very beginning South Carolina is an uphill battle for a guy from Massachusetts. I knew that.”

A poll released today seemed to bear that out. The Palmetto Poll, conducted by Clemson University, showed Gingrich had the lead among Republican voters in their survey, taking 32 percent over Romney’s 26 percent. The poll was conducted over Wednesday and yesterday; polling earlier this week by the group showed Romney comfortably in the lead.

Romney and his campaign continued to aggressively target Gingrich, over a 1997 ethics report, and over earmarks that he approved of while House speaker.

“Of course he should. Of course he should,” Romney said at a press conference here, following a rain-soaked rally where supporters crowded outside under umbrellas. “He was pushed out of the House by his fellow members. I think over 80 percent of Republican congressmen voted to reprimand the speaker of the House -- first time in history. And there are -- Nancy Pelosi has the full record of that ethics investigation. You know it’s going to get out before the general election. Sure, he ought to get it out now.”

Romney’s supporters have raised the issue, but it was the first time Romney himself has made an issue over the 1997 ethics proceedings that led to a reprimand of Gingrich.

The ethics committee – and the entire House – fined him $300,000 for misleading the committee in an investigation into whether Gingrich’s use of tax-exempt groups to raise money was illegal. Representative Nancy Pelosi – now the House minority leader – was among those on the ethics committee that did the investigation.

The ethics report itself has been made public, but some of the underlying documentation has not.

“We turned over 1 million pages of material,” Gingrich said at a Dec. 5 press conference. “We had a huge report.”

The Gingrich campaign this afternoon released a press release titled, “Drop in poll causes Romney to go on panic attack.” A spokesman, R.C. Hammond, also said in an email that there was no reason to release the documents.

“The Ethics Committee reviewed [Gingrich’s documents] for over a year and compiled a report,” he said. “If there was critical info why would it be left out?”

“I will make you a deal,” he added in a separate email. “Mitt Romney releases one million pages of his tax returns -- I will happily print for you one million copies of the ethics report where Newt was cleared of 83 of 84 politically motivated charges.”

Romney made the comments this afternoon after dismissing requests for his tax returns. When asked why he thought the public wanted to see his tax returns, he replied, “I know you guys do and the Democrats would like to and my opponents would like to, but in order for me to defeat President Obama I have to do what I think is the absolute right way to run a campaign and provide information, consistent with the public interest.”

Governor Nikki Haley, who was standing next to Romney, dismissed the questions, saying “nobody’s talking about tax returns.”

“The people of South Carolina are not talking about tax returns,” she said. “They’re not. They’re talking about jobs, spending, and the economy -- and in all honesty, I’ve heard more people wondering why you guys aren’t asking about ethics reports and ethics problems with the Gingrich campaign.”

Romney said he wasn’t worried that his various answers about the tax returns – from saying he might not release them, to say he’d release one year’s worth, to saying he’d release several year’s worth – was painting him as a waffle.

“It became clear that that was of great interest,” he said. “The reason, of course, is that my financial disclosure tells you a heck of a lot more about my finances than will the tax returns. My financial disclosure talks about all of my assets, everything I own, and that’s far more detailed than just my tax returns. So I felt that was more than sufficient.”

When asked whether he’d mishandled the issue, Romney responded, “I can’t possibly tell you that everything I do in the campaign is perfect.”

The race here has tightened in recent days, with public polling showing a dead heat and Romney’s internal polls indicating a tight race.

“We’re battling hard,” Romney said today. “The fact is right now it looks like its neck and neck that’s a good spot to be in. I’m pretty pleased and pretty proud about the success of our effort.”

Romney also reminded reporters that he came in fourth place in the state four years ago, and that Gingrich had advantages here.

“Speaker Gingrich is from a neighboring state, well-known, popular in the state,” he said. “And, and so I knew that we’d have a long, long road ahead of us. And frankly to be in a neck and neck race at this last moment is, is kind of exciting.”

It was a dramatically different posture than what he displayed on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. In the final days, he let slip to a crowd, “We’re going to win this thing!”

It initially appeared that he had in fact won – by just 8 votes – but then yesterday Rick Santorum was declared the winner, a turnaround that Romney joked about today.

“When I was in Iowa I joked that the corn counted as an amber wave of grain,” he said. “That may account for my slim, uh, defeat there. I used to say that accounted for an eight-point win, but I had to change my rhetoric in the last couple of days.”

Romney’s campaign this morning also cast Gingrich as a Washington insider who drove up government spending by relying on earmarks as the former Massachusetts governor attempts to stem the apparent momentum that Gingrich has going into tomorrow’s South Carolina primary.

Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, called Gingrich “the granddaddy of earmarking” and accused him of taking the political races of individual congressmen into account when deciding which earmarks to support – trying to reward those in tight races.

“Newt Gingrich has been a significant part of the reason why the budget has blown up…because of this earmark culture that began under his speakership,” said Representative John Campbell, a California Republican. “It’s not something we should be proud of.”

In 1994, the year before Gingrich took over as speaker, there were 1,318 earmarks in the federal budget that totaled $7.8 billion, according to a compilation by Citizens Against Government Waste, a group that opposes earmarks. By 1998, which was Gingrich’s last year as speaker, the number of projects soared to 2,143 and cost taxpayers $13.2 billion.

While Romney often touts that he’s no Washington politician, his surrogates also noted with pride this morning that he is doing the best to attract Washington support. Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who is leading Romney’s efforts in Congress, noted this morning that Romney had won 64 endorsements from current US House and Senate members, compared with only 13 for Gingrich.

“There’s a reason why the former speaker, the person who used to run the place, has almost no support,” Chaffetz said.