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Mitt Romney‘s press secretary, Andrea Saul, says Newt Gingrich is a “desperate candidate” who’s “flailing right now.”

Saul’s remarks follow the former speaker’s move to frame Romney as a politician with a far-from-conservative record.

“Can we trust a Massachusetts moderate to invoke a conservative agenda?” asked Gingrich’s communications director, Joe DeSantis, in a campaign email sent Monday night.

“Speaker Gingrich is a desperate candidate trying to revive his failing campaign,” responded Saul on MSNBC’s Jansing & Co. “You know — If you want to talk about someone who’s an unreliable conservative, Speaker Gingrich sat down on a couch with Nancy Pelosi at the behest of Al Gore to talk about global warming and support cap and trade.”

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“And then when the conservative cause needed him the most,” continued Saul, “with Paul Ryan’s budget, he threw the cause under the bus and called it ‘right wing social engineering.’”

As the January 3 Iowa caucuses rapidly approach, it’s clear that the Romney campaign is going gloves off against Gingrich, his chief Republican opponent. Saul confirmed that strategy by throwing one last uppercut before the interview came to an end:

“And so he’s an unreliable leader, he’s an unreliable conservative. So it’s no surprise that he’s flailing right now and trying to attack Gov. Romney and tear him down, just to try and save his sinking campaign.”

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