NYT Reports: In an “open letter” in the Register to Iowa voters, Mr. Dole, the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, said Mr. Romney was the party’s “best hope” for defeating President Obama.
As governor of Massachusetts Mr. Romney “managed to both balance the state’s budget and cut taxes while dealing with an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature,” Mr. Dole wrote.
Mr. Dole has a tortured history with Newt Gingrich, whose lead in the Iowa polls may have peaked. In the 1996 presidential campaign, Democrats tried to tie Mr. Dole to Speaker Gingrich’s histrionics by branding him “Dole/Gingrich,” much the way Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has branded the current front-runners as “Newt/Romney.”
