TROUBLE

GOP Rivals Pile on Romney

After $10K wager gaffe.

Mitt Romney isn’t looking so inevitable anymore. After the GOP candidate stepped in it by proposing a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry at Saturday night’s debate, his rivals are mercilessly exploiting the gaffe as evidence that he’s wealthy and out of touch. Jon Huntsman, who is foundering in the polls, quickly released a video repeating the incident and linking it with Romney’s history of favoring insurance mandates. Romney’s camp defended the incident, saying it only proved how sure Romney was in his argument. (He and Perry were arguing about a line in Romney’s own book.) But in fact, as @TheDemocrats tweeted, in a 2007 article, Newsweek reported that Romney said that Mass. health reform "will be a model for the nation." Meanwhile on Intrade, the amateur betting site that trades on candidates’ possibility of winning the nomination, Romney’s stock dipped almost 3 percent immediately following the debate—while Newt Gingrich's soared.