Romney, perhaps thinking of his own TV ads, replied: “I haven’t seen the ad, so I’m sorry. I don’t get to see all the TV ads. Did he say that?”
Gingrich clarified that he never used those specific words. During a 2007 speech, he said, “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and so they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”
While Gingrich later apologized to Hispanics for the remark, last night he accused Romney of a “deliberate distortion” of his comments.
Romney retorted: “I doubt that’s my ad, but we’ll take a look and find out.”
Blitzer, the CNN anchor, returned to the subject moments later and reported that Romney’s ad had, in fact, accused Gingrich of saying, “Spanish is the language of the ghetto.”
Blitzer also noted that Romney ended the ad with a standard disclaimer, “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.”
As the crowd booed, Romney turned from any potential criticism of his credibility to an attack on Gingrich’s record.
“Let me ask the speaker a question: Did you say what the ad says or not?” said Romney. “I don’t know.”
Gingrich replied, “It’s taken totally out of context.”
That prompted Romney to retort, “Oh, OK. He said it.”
In isolation, Romney’s obliviousness to an ad he personally approved is understandable, given the pressures of a presidential campaign and the multi-pronged ad wars being waged by him and third-party groups working on his behalf.
But his disavowal of a line of attack prominent in his Florida campaign suggested a disingenuousness that was buttressed by other comments during the debate.
The two-hour meeting, held at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, also featured Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, two candidates who lag badly heading into Tuesday’s primary.
Paul, a Texas congressman, is now aiming for smaller caucus states such as Nevada and Maine, the latter of which he visits today and tomorrow.
