On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, former Tennessee Republican Sen. Fred Thompson attributed Republican and conservative attacks on former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to “old score-settling.”
“Of course I served with him, so I am one of those people that have endorsed him and there are several others that have served with him, too,” Thompson said. “But you know, there’s some old score-settling going on. Newt had some run-ins with some people of his own party. But, you know, a lot of them — I am not talking about Bob Dole, who I love — but a lot of them were holding Newt’s coat, back when he conceived of the way for the Republicans to takeover and have the first Republican House speaker in 50 years. “
Thompson reminded “Meet the Press” host David Gregory of some of Gingrich’s accomplishments, and how Republican support for Gingrich fell off when poll numbers started taking a hit.
“When they balanced the budget and held Bill Clinton’s feet to the fire and finally got welfare reform passed, and we were winning elections and his personality and his leadership skills and all that didn’t seem to be a big problem back then,” he said. “But when those poll numbers dropped off and we started losing some elections we should have won and so forth, everything changed. And now Mitt’s been the front-runner for a long time and people are piling on the bandwagon.”
Thompson is the latest to seek to explain the backlash against Gingrich. Other explanations have ranged from the suggestion that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a better candidate to a fear that down-ballot elections might suffer if Gingrich is at the top of the ticket.
