The Hill News

Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney of "defending the right to lie" and "drowning people in dirt" in a guns-blazing rebuttal of the former Massachusetts governor's attack ads in early campaign states.

"I have faith that the people of Iowa can see baloney, they understand baloney, this is baloney, they want the real thing," Gingrich said during an interview Wednesday on the Laura Ingraham show. "Newt Gingrich has actually balanced the budget, reformed welfare, cut taxes. I'm prepared to run a campaign of honesty and a campaign of facts and a campaign of positive ideas. And I think people are going to look up in this kind of economy with this kind of deficit and this kind of president--we don't need to replace Obama's dishonesty with a Republican who is equally dishonest."

Gingrich's campaign has made a coordinated effort to push back on the ads, funded by a political action committee supporting Romney, that have flooded the airwaves in early voting stat! es. Gingrich's once ballooning poll numbers have slipped in the past week as the former House Speaker has struggled to combat the tough campaigning; a Rassmussen poll released Wednesday showed the former House Speaker trailing both Romney by 7 points and Ron Paul by 3 percent.

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