byA flu-battled Gingrich: Romney didn’t get rid of me, he just slowed me down - Get well soon, gnewt Mon, I pray - the flu will tear you down, day after day after day

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich answers questions during a campaign stop Jan. 1, 2012, in Marshalltown, Iowa. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Marshalltown, Ia. – Newt Gingrich will aggressively counter Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, the next presidential battleground, the former U.S. House Speaker said here today. “He didn’t get rid of me, he just slowed me down,” Gingrich said of Romney. Gingrich, who has slid in recent polls after a slew of campaign ads have run against him, said he believes his campaign should have responded sooner in Iowa in regard to attacks that he collected $1.6 million as a consultant for his work for the quasi-government and financially troubled mortgage company Freddie Mac. He has since noted that his personal pay was roughly $35,000 a year for six years. Gingrich said he was feeling better today but had battled the flu on Thursday and Friday, joking that it was a crisis he survived. He also told reporters covering an event at Junction Sports Bar & Grill in Marshalltown that voters in New Hampshire will see a more aggressive campaign from him, specifically against Mitt Romney. He has accused the former Massachusetts governor of covertly going negative through so-called super PACs, political action committees that aren’t directly associated with campaigns. He described future ads that he will launch as ones that will be based on facts and contrasts. “Because I think when you have someone who spends $3.5 million lying about you, you have some obligation to come back and set the record straight,” Gingrich said when asked why. Gingrich later contended that the attacks against him only helped some other conservative emerge since Romney’s support remains in the mid to lower 20s in many polls. He said that he didn’t feel that he’d been swift boated but had rather been “Romney boated,” a reference to ads that hurt Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in the 2004 elections. Reporters further asked Gingrich to describe why he is a better choice than former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has edged Gingrich in the most recent Iowa Poll conducted for The Des Moines Register. “I’m not going to say anything negative about Rick Santorum. He’s a terrific guy,” Gingrich said. ”I think I’m the more experienced national leader with the greater ability to actually change Washington and that’s what I would make the final argument on.”