Gingrich knocks Romney for his reason to not run for a second term as Governor of Massachusetts. Santorum also gets a dig in when he asked if Romney wouldn't run for a second term if elected president due to the same reasons he gave for not seeking another term as Governor.
"I-- I went to Massachusetts to make it different. I didn't go there to begin a political career, running time and time again. I-- I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do. I listed out the accomplishments we wanted to pursue in our administration. There were 100 things we wanted to do. Those things I pursued aggressively. Some we won. Some we didn't," Romney said about his tenure as Massachusetts Governor.
"Run again? That would be about me," he said. "I was tryin' to help get the state in best shape as I possibly could. Left the-- the world of politics, went back into business. Now I have the opportunity, I believe, to use the experience I have-- you-- you got-- a surprised look on your face."
This led Santorum to question Romney if he wouldn't want another term as president if he felt that he accomplished most of what he wanted to get done in his first term.
"Yeah, what I'm gonna tell you is I-- this-- this for me, politics, is not a career. For me my career was being in business and starting a business and making it success," Romney said.
"I long for a day where instead of having people to go to Washington for 20 and 30 years who get elected and then when they lose office they stay there and make money as lobbyists or connecting to businesses, I think it stinks. I think we oughta have people go to Washington and serve Washington. And-- and go-- serve as-- as their-- the people of their-- of their nation and go home. I'd like to see term limits in Washington," he added.
When it was Gingrich's turn to respond to Romney, he let loose.
"Oh yeah. I mean I-- I realize the red light doesn't mean anything to you because you're the front runner. But-- but can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is you ran in '94 and lost. That's why you weren't serving in the Senate with-- Rick Santorum," he said.
"The fact is you had a very bad reelection rating. You dropped out of office. You had been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president," Gingrich said. "You then promptly reentered politics. You happened to lose to McCain as you had lost to Kennedy. Now you're back running. You've been running consistently for years and years and years. So this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind, just level with the American people. You've been running for-- so at least since the 1990s."
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