The New York Times reports on comments Mitt Romney made today in South Carolina:
When asked if former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, had acted as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, Mr. Romney first demurred, before hinting at his true beliefs.
“I’m going to let the lawyers decide what is and is not lobbying,” he said. “But when it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, typically it’s a duck.”
The Associated Press reports on how Newt Gingrich is planning to combat the attacks against him:
Gingrich cited “the extraordinary negativity of the campaign” during a call from Washington with Iowa supporters. He said he was inclined to hold teleconferences every few days so people can discuss ideas and his campaign can “encourage them to raise any of these things that you get in the mail that are junk and dishonest.”
Gingrich also addressed the Freddie Mac claims:
“I just want to set the record straight,” Gingrich told his Iowa backers. “We were paid annually for six years, so the numbers you see are six years of work. Most of that money went to pay overhead — for staff, for other things. It didn’t go directly to me. It went to the company that provided consulting advice.”
'He said he was inclined to hold teleconferences every few days so people can discuss ideas and his campaign can “encourage them to raise any of these things that you get in the mail that are junk and dishonest.”'
Sounds a lot like Attackwatch to me. I am far, far from sold on Gingrich. Tea Partiers--a group for whom I have immense respect--who think of Gingrich as one of their own are sorely mistaken.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe amount of money that was given to him is not what you would pay for advise from someone like Newt Gingrich, others can tell you what he can for a lot less. It is what you pay for influence.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI know, advice. I just woke up, it is Sunday morning my time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInteresting article in the Boston Globe about Mr Romney's investments in Fred and Fan.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe two do not compare.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOK - That clears that up. Thanks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps not. But one got paid to give advice and the other invested 500K to make money.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFirst of all Romney earned between $15,001 and $50,000 according to the financial disclosure statement, not $1.6 to $1.8 million. And he invested in a mutual fund that was invested in Fannie and Freddie debt among other things. He was merely trading in a publicly traded company. It would be dumb to call on everyone who ever in the past invested in Freddie, or invested in companies that invested in Freddie, to send back the money that they earned. They didn't do anything wrong.
Secondly what Gingrich was doing was very different from Romney. No, you are not going to spend $1.6 million just to hear Newt Gingrich shoot off at the mouth. Especially to listen to advice that you are planning to ignore (like he claims they did). You pay someone like Gingrich $1.6 to be an advocate, to influence politicians to like you, or at least not hate you- to write favorable legislation, or at least not write unfavorable legislation. He was doing this while Freddie was causing the mortgage bubble that later popped. Perhaps undermining efforts that could have reined in Freddie and just maybe helped prevent making the crisis as bad as it became. He wasn't creating wealth, he was helping Freddie engage in what economists call "rent seeking".
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'Poll: Newt Gingrich's lead over Romney is gone'
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Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Most of that money went to pay overhead — for staff, for other things. It didn’t go directly to me. It went to the company that provided consulting advice"
Impressive. I didn't know Newt was fluent in accounting double talk.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFluent in double talk is what Newt has done for a living for the last 30 years--public & private.
In fact, last month Gingrich said that he couldn't "remember specifics from twelve years ago", that he was paid 1.6 million to give history lectures, and that he was only "offering them advise for precisely what they didn't do"--i.e., right up until Sept. 2008 when that mortgage entity & their Newt promoted government programs tanked the U.S. economy.
Moreover, Newt insists that "Washington insiders with ties to Freddie Mac lobbyists" need to return their financial contributions & go to jail.
Sen. Tom Coburn, quote; "I'm not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich's having served under him for four years & personally experienced his leadership...There's all types of leaders...Leaders who have one standard for the people they're leading and a different standard for themselves. I just found his leadership lacking."
That would explain why Gingrich is the only Speaker in U.S. history to be disciplined for ethical trangressions, sanctioned an unprecedented $300,000 for violating federal law & lying to obstruct,--ditto ejected from the House leadership by conservatives in his own party.
Interestingly, Gingrich's senior advisors & staff seconded Coburn's assessment of Newt's leadership skills in June 2011 when they resigned en masse from his presidential campaign trashing the former Speaker a train wreak.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow much overhead could there possibly *be* for one guy "giving history lectures"? How much staff could he possibly need?
$1.6 million over 6 years for one guy? That makes Harvard look like a bargain.
CAPTCHA: one hit wonder. Snicker.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI doubt that there is any branch of lying he's not an expert in. Grindgrinch, the truth is not in him. Cordially, Bill
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe has three problems around Freddie Mac:
1) Thanks to the fact that his name is former Speaker Newt Gingrich (and not Georgetown History Professor X) his company made a lot of money providing consulting to the GSE that wrecked our economy. This problem was not really that bad in my mind and he would have recovered nicely by speaking authoritatively about Freddie Mac's problems if not for the fact that:
2) He has been misleading voters about it. Voters don't like to be taken as fools. If he thinks that voters will actually believe that he was being paid to give history lessons or that they paid him for 6 years to tell them that their business model was stupid and not to influence others on their behalf, then he thinks voters are fools.
3) He doesn't seem to recognize Freddie Mac's role in wrecking our economy. In this last debate, he didn't just defend his consulting (different from lobbying in a legal context that most voters don't and shouldn't care about); he also defended Freddie Mac as an institution and failed to criticize what it's become. That's both wrong and stupid political strategy after everything that's happened the last few years. I think that will hurt him. It's not going to take him out of the race or anything, but it will hurt.
It will be interesting to see if one of the candidates can get up on the air in the coming weeks with some effective ads on what these GSEs did to us. It's an effective argument against Obama's centralization of the economy and it hurts Newt at the same time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, Gingrich did lobby for Freddie and Fannie. He was their paid advocate. Freddie and Fannie's goal in hiring Gingrich was to curry favor with Republican members of Congress. The Bush administration was seeking from Congress increased regulatory authority over Freddie and Fannie. Gingrich, at the behest of Freddie and Fannie, helped deflect Bush's attempts to rein in Freddie and Fannie's excesses.
None of what Gingrich did was illegal. Nor do I believe that Gingrich was advocating for policies that he didn't in reality support. At the time, many on the left and the right believed that Freddie and Fannie were examples of good government.
Two things bother me about Gingrich's relationship with Freddie and Fannie. 1st, he still believes Freddie and Fannie are examples of the kind of things government should be doing. His view is that things would have been different if someone smarter, like him, had been in charge. 2nd, Gingrich is lying to us about his role. First he says he was paid as a historian, then he says he was paid to tell Freddie and Fannie their lending practices were all wet; he says he was paid only a few thousand dollars, etc. Why the untruths and distortions?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course it was lobbying in every important sense. Newt is transparently dishonest, and vulgularly uses politics to make money. The more you know about him, the more you dislike him. Aaron Burr had some success, too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo paraphrase the title of a tune from "South Pacific": "You've got to be carefully bought."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt went to the company that provided consulting advice.”
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Didn't Newt mean to say 'the company that provided historian advice' ?
And if most of 1.6 million over 6 years went to staff and overhead, and Newt thinks that is normal and reasonable (for one client!) can we really expect significant cuts in federal budget expenditures?
Maybe he should talk to Warren Buffett about how to be cheap to your secretaries. :-)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is little doubt about Gingrich's vast Beltway lobby offering.
The WSJ has a rather thorough review of the Fannie - Freddie aspect:
"Where to begin? One problem is the lack of candor. In Thursday's Sioux City debate, Mr. Gingrich repeated his claim that he had never done a favor for Fan and Fred. But as Speaker in 1995, according to news reports at the time, Mr. Gingrich helped to kill an effort by then House Budget Chairman John Kasich to impose user fees on Fannie and Freddie. The fees were intended to offset the cost advantage provided to the companies by their implicit government guarantee."
The Prescription Drug effort involving Gingrich lobbying looks to be equally concerning. The double life is vividly exposed, playing Our Base while being engaged in the exact opposite.
The old Celebrity Beltway Insider swindle on display.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It didn’t go directly to me. It went to the company that provided consulting advice.”
Gosh, reminds me a lot of another political contemporary of Newt in the 90's...
"I did not have sex with that woman."
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