Gingrich: I Wouldn't Vote for Ron Paul

Does this qualify as going negative? Newt Gingrich laid into Ron Paul in serious fashion today, delivering the ultimate rebuke: He said definitively that he would not vote for Paul if he wins the Republican nomination. "I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich told Wolf Blitzer during an interview on CNN.

Among other things, he accused Paul of being willing to abandon Israel and to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and he ridiculed his rival's explanation that he was unaware of the content of racist newsletters that went out under his name years ago. "I think the choice of Ron Paul or Barack Obama would be a very bad choice for America." Gingrich also criticized Mitt Romney's "moderate" record, but he didn't go after the frontrunner with the same venom. Click to read about Romney's Lucille Ball dig at Gingrich. (More Newt Gingrich 2012 stories.)