Newt Gingrich on Sunday defended Mitt Romney from attacks made on his record at Bain Capital.
"Bain as an issue doesn't work because people look at it in balance," he said on 'Meet The Press'. "And they say, wait a second, yeah, you can pick a couple companies that lost. You can pick a lot of companies that succeeded. And as even as the governor of Massachusetts said last week, it is a good company."
The Obama campaign has been hitting Romney hard on Bain recently, releasing a series of ads that focus on ways that Bain has hurt jobs creation. Obama on Monday argued that Romney's business experience doesn't make him qualified to be president.
Gingrich said that the attack "is going to fall flat on its face ... Obama picking a fight on the economy is probably the worst possible strategy for his campaign."
The former presidential candidate's defense of Romney's business record may surprise those who followed his campaign. At one point, Gingrich made Romney's Bain record a central issue and referred to private equity as "rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company."
Obama's campaign was even inspired by Gingrich's attacks.
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley hinted at the discrepancy between Gingrich's statements now and those he made during the campaign.
"I agree with Speaker Gingrich during his campaign when he had to address that claim that Mitt Romney initially made that, oh, he created hundreds of thousands of jobs, a claim he eventually backed off of under the speaker's questioning and pressing," he said.