This Breitbart article about McCain’s 2008 campaign team is infuriating me far too much for me to write coherently about it for very long, so let me be brief: speaking professionally, I agree with it. The faction of Team McCain represented by Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace should not be allowed anywhere NEAR a Republican Presidential campaign for the rest of their lives. And I mean it: the main campaign was a collection of professional political malpractice that seemed content to merely put up enough of a fight to satisfy honor, then lose gracefully. While I like and respect most of the people who were directly involved in handling New Media aspects for McCain, it became incredibly clear by the end of the 2008 election cycle that the McCain campaign essentially treated those people with about as much respect as they did us ; which is to say, none at all. The campaign would have happily ignored us completely, if they thought that they could get away with it; as it was, they made sure that we knew that our inclusion was both grudging and resented – and literally muted whenever possible. How bad was it? Let me put it this way: I’ve already gotten more out of Romney’s campaign than I ever have out of McCain’s – and Mitt Romney isn’t even the official nominee yet . The bottom line is that it turned out that John McCain wanted to be the nominee a heck of a lot more than he ever wanted to be the President, and while I’m sure that McCain feels that his team acquitted themselves well in the 2008 general election the rest of us are… somewhat unpersuaded. But don’t get me started. There was one conference call that still raises my blood pressure by a measurable amount… (H/T: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit ) Moe Lane ( crosspost ) PS: Like many people at the time, I thought that McCain’s offer to suspend campaigning as a reaction to the financial crisis was a good one ; the difference is that I am willing to admit that yeah, I got that one catastrophically wrong.
More:
The professional malpractice of the 2008 John McCain campaign team, revisited.
There is a certain kind of inside-the-beltway conservative (you know the type) who emerges from his cocoon from time to time with the good news that all is well in America. “We’re a center-right country,” he tells us. “It can’t happen here.” The guarantee of individual liberty expressed in the Declaration of Independence, central to which is our tradition of religious liberty, is enshrined in the Constitution. We might debate the extent of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause, but unlike the French we never had an anti-clerical party that bashes churches. In the guerres franco-françaises , from 1789 on, one took sides with either the Church or the Republic, but never both. Admirably, my conservative thinks well of his country—but he should get out more often. If “it” means a sharp turn to the left, that certainly has happened in the last three years. As for religion, the HHS mandates, which would force religious believers to violate their conscience by offering contraceptive and abortifacient drugs to their employees, are really about anti-clericalism. The Administration seeks to justify the mandates as a means of serving women’s health, but no one really believes that. Pregnancy isn’t an illness, and drugs that prevent or terminate a pregnancy don’t make people healthy. Even apart from that, the dollars in question are so trivial that no one is hard done by if she has to buy the pills herself. The cost of the “free” prescription is about $100 a year at Walmart, the price for a movie and dinner for two at Red Lobster. People on the left complain that, by opposing the contraception mandate, the Church is denying women contraceptives, but that’s only true if I am denied a dinner at Red Lobster because I have to pay for it out of my pocket. People who believe that also believe, with Big Brother, that Freedom equals Slavery. So all that is a subterfuge behind what is really going on, which is picking a fight with the Church. For the Administration, that’s a winner, for three reasons. First, anything that distracts attention from important issues is a godsend, and resurrecting the culture wars does just that. The economy is in the tank, Iran is about to get nuclear weapons, and what does the mainstream media want to talk about? A $100 a year prescription! Second, keeping the focus on religion gives Democrats an opportunity to beat up on Republicans. Democrats poll-tested the question last summer, and came away thinking that, by taking on the Church, they’d win more votes among women and the radical left than they’d lose among Catholics. That’s even more so if Santorum wins the Republican nomination, which explains the timing of the announcement. Here is noted philosopher Bill Press on Santorum and his religion: “It’s perfectly acceptable for Rick Santorum to hold and preach those beliefs about sexuality, no matter how medieval. But he’s running for president of the United States, not for pope.” With his finger on the pulse of American voters, Press goes on to predict a 50-state landslide for Obama over the issue. The Sisters for Life have protested that the new rule tramples on their right to practice their religion. Each of us will be required by law to obtain health insurance, or face fines. Since this HHS mandate will require every insurer to include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and artificial contraception, we will not be able to obtain any coverage that is free from those “services,” and we will be forced to pay for them directly. Since we are neither employers, nor employees, of any religious institution, we cannot even take advantage of the “religious exemption” contained in the new regulations or the “compromise.” The Sisters describe themselves as a “contemplative/active religious community,” which means that they’re almost as other-worldly as my inside-the-beltway conservative. What they haven’t realized is that limiting their religious freedom is the very point of the bill. Their mistake is the one James Bond made in Goldfinger . Agent 007 is strapped down on the table, unable to move, as the death ray creeps slowly toward him. “Do you expect me to talk?” he asks. And Goldfinger smiles. “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!” Now, no one wants the good sisters to die. All the Administration wants is to convert them to the church of Saint Nancy Pelosi. They’ve been a great annoyance. They go on marches and the like. Of course the press never notices them, but still they’re an oppositionist movement. And for all their talk of “rights,” these are the same people who would deny the rights of loving homosexual partners to adopt children. After taking some flack on this, Obama came out with an “accommodation,” an accounting gimmick in which insurance companies are required to provide the drugs “for free,” a tactic that stripped away many of the rule’s critics, the Washington Post , left-wing Catholics, libertarians. If the prior rule was offensive, however, the “accommodation” is even more so because, without relaxing the requirement, it insults one’s intelligence. Only the deeply stupid and economically illiterate would believe that insurers will offer a costly service without passing on the cost to their insureds. The accommodation slaps the Sisters for Life in the face and then, compounding the humiliation, tells them to pretend that the slap never happened. It’s also amusing that an Administration which complains of the financial burden of having to pay for the prescription out of one’s pocket tells us, out of the other side of its mouth, that the cost is so trivial that the insurer will do it at no charge. If that were the case, why was Nancy Pelosi, barking madness apart, so worked up about this? There’s a third reason why the issue is a winning one for liberals. The Church is one of those inconvenient institutions interposed between the president and the people. When one has direct knowledge of the good, as the liberal does, and a president with whom one agrees, intermediary institutions simply get in the way. If they articulate a different political or moral vision, they’re Bill Press’s medieval church. If they provide social services, schools, hospitals, adoption agencies, they are doing what government should be doing, and often with a dangerously illiberal agenda. And it’s not just the Church. There’s also the Supreme Court, whose Citizens United decision Obama regularly takes on, remarkably to their faces in his 2010 State of the Union speech. Then too there’s Congress, which sadly has been given the power, under the Constitution, to oppose the will of the president. “What’s frustrating people,” Obama said, “is that I haven’t been able to force Congress to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008.” (Those darn Founders! Maybe I’ll recess appoint my entire cabinet next time around.) Then there are charitable organizations, which Obama wants to shrink by limiting charitable deductions. Who needs them, when government should be doing it all? There also are families, who shockingly send their children to school with turkey sandwiches and not the Chicken McNuggets approved by the Department of Education. Finally, there are the states and American federalism. Libertarians have properly complained that a government which can force people to buy health insurance (without invoking the taxing power) can require people to eat broccoli. Or possibly arugula, were it up to Michelle Obama. What seems not to have been noticed is that Obamacare is also an issue about federalism, or would have been so but for the expansive view courts take of the Commerce Clause (“the feds always win”). For libertarians, it’s always about Man vs. the State. For statists too, it’s the same line-up, only this time the state always wins. Conservatives view it differently, as we see a need for intermediary institutions between man and the state. They give people the meaningful diversity that comes with a range of choices, and the information about how to live and how we should be governed that Washington cannot alone provide. That is why anti-clericalism is so dangerous. It does more than trample on individual rights. It also attacks an institution which permits its members to flourish in solidarity with each other, and which, merely by existing, defends their freedom. When every other barrier to oppression is removed, in a Poland or a China, what remains are churches faithful to their mission. Our modern liberal is an imperialist, you see. He would treat everyone equally, and to ensure equality would refuse to recognize any intermediary institution. “To the Jews as Frenchmen, everything,” said Napoleon. “To the Jews as Jews, nothing.” For what are the Sisters for Life, after all, except a number of female citizens, and a small number at that? To them as Catholics, nothing; to them as citoyennes , the state offers Ortho Tri-Cyclen!
Read the original here:
Liberal Imperialism
The liberal Center for American Progress claims that Obamacare will save both seniors and taxpayers money. The group’s Think Progress site touts a new report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) showing that taxpayers will save $200 billion and Medicare recipients $60 billion through 2016 courtesty of the Affordable Care Act. Even this wouldn’t be much in the context of Medicare’s multi-trillion dollar shortfall. But if you read the fine print, Medicare’s chief actuary doesn’t think these projections are very realistic. Richard Foster pours the following cold water: “the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions in price updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable).” Emphasis mine, hat tip Peter Suderman . The reduction in physician payments isn’t going to happen, at least not to the extent envisioned by the federal health care law. And the assumptions about health care productivity improvements probably won’t pan out either, at least not to the extent necessary to make these projections realistic. It’s like the old joke about economists trying to rescue themselves from a pit: “First, assume a ladder.”
See the article here:
No, Obamacare Probably Won’t Improve Medicare Finances
Conservatives need to do a better job of explaining how they would lower gas prices. More drilling is a great piece of the pie, but there needs to be more. Governor Sarah Palin and Eric Bolling, Fox News host of of The Five, have put together a comprehensive plan to lower gas prices and they mapped out the details in the video below. The FOX gas price solution show was titled “Paying at the Pump.” Gov. Palin and Bolling rolled out some excellent ideas to combat skyrocketing gas prices. When President Obama was sworn into office, gas was priced at $1.85 cents a gallon. Clearly, the President’s energy policy has been an abject failure with gas prices hovering close to $4.00 a gallon. This show contains a comprehensive conservative means to lower gas prices. Conservatives need to make a strong case to the American people that the solution to high prices at the pump is a conservative solution. Get the government out of the business of hiking gas prices through wrong headed government policies. As usual, government has caused many of the problems leading to a massive hike in gas prices and President Obama has exacerbated the problem. It is important to note that high gas prices causes price inflation in consumer goods. Having gas prices so high is a drag on the economy in the transportation of goods and in the production of many products. The impact of gas prices doubling since President Obama was sworn into office is currently harming the economic future of the United States. High gas prices hammer the middle class and low income Americans harder than the well to do. High gas prices are a problem that needs to be addressed in the very near future or our economy shall stagnate. The first point Palin and Bolling made in the show was that gas prices cause inflation on many other products used by Americans. Anybody who has made a recent trip to the grocery store has felt the pinch of increasing prices. One of the reasons why these prices are hiking is because of high fuel prices, yet another important, and lesser known factor, is the impact of environmental regulations forcing truckers to use vehicles at increased cost. The experts on the show argued that environmentalist extremists and anti-energy policies are one of the factors hiking grocery prices. We can all thank the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for some of the gas price inflation. Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute wrote a blog post titled EPA-Induced refinery closures linked to high gas prices . Green cited an article in Investor’s Business Daily that put responsibility on the EPA for higher gas prices. The untold story behind soaring pump prices is that major U.S. refineries are going out of business and creating at least regional shortages thanks in no small part to costly EPA rules. Over just the past six months, three refineries supplying about half the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the East Coast have closed, including two owned by Sunoco Inc. They say they simply cannot make money anymore. Philadelphia-based Sunoco’s refinery business in the Northeast has lost almost $1 billion over the past three years as U.S. demand for gas fell and the cost of foreign crude soared. But over the same period, it had to shell out “significant expenditures for environmental projects and compliance activities” to satisfy onerous EPA mandates, according to the company’s latest 10-K report. In fact, it’s spent more than $1.3 billion just to comply with stricter EPA rules, which carry stiff fines or penalties for violations. Sunoco fretted that these regulatory costs would grow exponentially under the Obama administration, which has hit some of its refineries with fines. The federal government has passed on a $1.3 billion tax on the American consumer in the form of EPA regulations. Regulations are a hidden tax on the American people and they limit choices. The fact that three refineries have closed is evidence that this burdensome regulatory structure is increasing gas prices. One simple solution would be to suspend these regulations to see if gas prices come down and more refineries come on line. Strip the EPA of any authority to implement the rules that are causing higher gas prices. Of the many laughable and wrong headed ideas of the Obama Administration is the President Obama’s suggestion of getting regular tune ups and inflating tires. This will have no impact on gas prices and is not a realistic means to solve our energy problems. Obama has also embraced the miracle fuel of converting Algae to gas. Yet another unproven miracle fuel idea that is not at a stage where Algae is being considered a realistic solution to our nations’ energy problems. These Obama ideas can go in the silly category and should be treated as non-serious solutions. One serious proposal that will increase gas prices is to impose higher taxes on the Oil and Gas industry. The President’s idea to raise taxes on the Oil and Gas industry was rejected by the United States Senate , because it would raise prices at the pump. The President’s idea is to single out the manufacturing tax credit extended to the Oil and Gas industry. A tax credit that applies to all manufacturers. The President acts as if the federal government is subsidizing Oil and Gas, yet fails to point out that every manufacturer is allowed a 9% deduction from revenues as part of our corporate tax code. Already, the federal government has singled out the Oil and Gas industry for a manufacturing tax credit. An increased tax on the Oil and Gas industry will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher gas prices.; therefore the President’s removal of what he calls a tax subsidy would effectively increase gas cost at the pump for all Americans. Another problem identified by Gov. Palin’s segment on the Fox broadcast is that there are large swaths of the United States off limits to drilling. Production is up on private and state properties, yet on federally controlled lands, production is not where it needs to be. Gov. Palin made the point that in Alaska is loaded with resources that are untapped. Palin said on the show the following: In the 50s oil was discovered and the Navy set aside a petroleum reserve, the NPRA, was set aside for the development of oil and gas. That was in the 1950s, yet that unit, that land, still has never been touched. And then in the 1960s more oil was discovered and ANWR was created. It is a huge unit, 20 million acres, was set aside for wilderness for refuge and in mid-1980 it was expanded for oil and gas development in the coastal plain, the tipy top of ANWR. So we have these huge swaths of land, 20 million acres in one unit and 19 million acres in another unit, reservoirs that have proven to hold oil and gas that have not been tapped yet. If President Obama was serious about domestic oil production he would urge Congress to open up drilling in ANWR today. Yet again the environmental extremists have won the day. They have thwarted the Keystone pipeline and drilling in ANWR, as well as off the coast of Florida, the East Coast, the West Coast and many on land areas that could help reduce America’s dependence on oil. According to Rayola Dougher of the American Petroleum Institute, 87% of the acreage offshore is off limits to drilling and development. The President’s solution seems to be merely a political one. Obama has targeted individuals who trade in futures as if they are the individuals responsible for a massive spike in gas prices. This is consistent with his Class Warfare campaign, because he can blame Wall Street for high gas prices. Yet again, President Obama is trying to shift blame away from his own anti-energy policies as a means to blame somebody else for the problems he has failed to solve. President Obama needs a straw man to draw fire from his incompetent energy policy. The President has seen fit to demonize “speculators” as if they are evil people driving up the price of gas at the pump. The fact of the matter is that speculators are trading on the knowledge that the President’s energy policy is not going to produce more domestic sources of energy. As good traders they are operating on the smart bet that as President Obama thwarts more domestic oil production, gas prices will go higher. The President said earlier this week, “we can’t afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions while millions of American families get the short end of the stick.” According to the AP , the President’s proposal to bring down gas prices contains three elements, federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy graders are required to put behind their transactions. According to AP the following elements are included in the President’s plan: Increase six-fold the surveillance and enforcement staff of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to better deter oil market manipulation. Increase spending on technology to provide better oversight and surveillance of energy markets. Increase civil and criminal penalties against firms that engage in market manipulation from $1 million to $10 million. Give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission authority to increase the amount of money that a trader must put up to back a trading position. The administration officials said such authority could help limit disruptions in energy markets. Eric Bolling stated on his show that one element of the Obama proposal may make some sense – raising the energy trading margins. Bolling is a guy who has some experience on the issue of futures trading. He was on the Board of Directors (2000-2005) of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Now Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and an oil trader (1990-2007). Bolling argued that merely using existing authorities to force Wall Street banks and other institutions trading in derrivatives to put some skin in the game would insure against reckless trading. Maybe one of the problems we have today is the idea that the big Wall Street traders are considered “Too Big To Fail,” therefore they act as if they have an implicit insurance policy from the federal government to bail them out if the oil futures market collapses. One solution to the problem would be for the bailout supporting Obama Administration to pledge not to bail out big Wall Street banks and trading firms if they go belly up as a result of bad energy futures trades. That seems like a good free market solution to the problem. Although the Dodd-Frank legislation already says that financial institutions will no longer be bailed out, and will be allowed to fail, this is not necessarily true. The standard interpretation of this language on Wall Street is that no one needs to worry about failing any more, because a Federal bailout is assured. It’ll just be called by some different name. As usual, President Obama has takes the wrong tact. He refuses to drill more on federal lands, his addiction to green energy is well known and he is not expected to renounce bailouts as a legitimate policy of the federal government. Remember how much money Wall Street funnelled to his campaign after the 2008 Wall Street bailout. One should not expect him, in an election year, to stick a finger in the eye of one of the sectors of the economy expected to give him $1 billion to fund his re-election campaign. Obama is engaging in more class warfare by demonizing “Speculators” as a class of people robbing the American people. Bolling pointed out on the show out that a simple change to the margin requirements may solve the problem. That solution may preclude the over-broad response by the Obama Administration to the gas price problem. Bolling pointed out on the show that the whole world uses 83 million barrels a day. The markets move over 4 billion barrels a day in the form of derrivatives on the market. Bolling further pointed out that these futures are not being traded by the Saudi Arabians nor other middle eastern members of OPEC. Also, not Shell or Gulf or any other oil company making these future trades. The traders are the bailed out (i.e. failed) Wall Street entities that have already done lasting harm to the idea of free market capitalism with the bailouts. Bolling pointed out that these Wall Street firms don’t have to have any skin in the game if they buy and sell an oil future in the same day. He further pointed out that if they hold a future overnight, they only have to prove they have posted approximately a 5% against the margin of the position. Conservatives need to understand that this is not in the form of a new regulation. The regulations authorizing this new margin requirement already exists in the law. It is not a new additional regulation nor is it a fee. It is merely a margin account to show the companies still own the collateral used to make these trades. Now some will point to the fact that exchanges already have the ability to increase margin requirements for trading positions. They absolutely do this in volatile conditions, when they fear that traders may be taking on too much leverage, increasing their risk of failure. Additionally, futures markets have strict daily trading limits and positions are marked to market every night. This means people who bet wrong can generally get forced out of the market before they can bankrupt their counter-parties. Some will argue that if the Obama Administration comes to Congress to demand that legislation enabling regulators to impose position limits or margin requirements is pointless. The exchanges already have a self-preservation interest in enforcing these at times of stress. It is important to note that the Palin-Bolling plan did not call for more legislation, yet the Obama Administration is trying to get Congress to pass legislation to force regulators to make this decision. The President’s plan does not define “manipulation” and gives regulators the power to make subjective decisions. How will market participants prepare for regulators curtailing otherwise-legal activities. Having Congress implement all the aspects of the Obama proposal may make the markets all the more unstable. Now creating a margin requirement that is too high will stifle the market and move these trades to other markets. That would hurt the financial sector of the American economy and also do lasting harm to free market capitalism. Bolling’s idea has merit and a reasonable margin requirement may be one element of a comprehensive plan to get gas prices under control. The fact that the Obama Administration already has the authority that this Administration is not serious about gas prices. They punt all the difficult decisions to Congress, yet they refuse to do anything to “Drill Baby Drill” domestically. This Administration is firmly in support of demonizing “Speculators” and “Big Oil” by increasing taxes and comparing “Speculators” to the guys that cause the Enron scandal. Another idea that needs an airing that didn’t make the Palin-Bolling show was devolving highway programs back to the states. Right now the federal government collects $18.3 cents on every gallon of gas pumped in the United States. The feds collect the taxes then dole these revenues back to the states to pay for highway programs, bike paths and miscellaneous earmarks. The best solution would be to devolve the programs back to the states where they belong and eliminate the federal gas tax. States already collect hefty gas taxes and they could increase the state based gas taxes to cover the shortfall. Without the federal government bureaucrats wasting these tax dollars there would be measurable savings at the pump. At a minimum, conservatives need to roll out a comprehensive plan and force Congress to consider these plans over and over again. Gas prices are a big issue and if conservatives in Congress are not forcing vote after vote on good ideas, then they will lose the messaging war to the Class Warrior in Chief who is seeking to use scare tactics and class warfare to secure another term in the White House. There is a conservative solution. Governor Sarah Palin and Fox’s Eric Bolling have rolled out a conservative plan that deserves a national debate.
Excerpt from:
The Palin-Bolling Proposal To Lower Gas Prices
Palm trees swayed in a warm Florida breeze one afternoon in late January while we awaited the candidate’s arrival. Four TV satellite trucks were parked outside the terminal at Page Field in Fort Myers, and I was among two-dozen or so journalists waiting in the airport parking lot where about 300 supporters of Newt Gingrich were gathered to greet the man who, just nine days earlier, had defeated Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary. On Monday, Jan. 30, the day before the Florida primary, the omens were clear enough that Gingrich was about to be defeated in the Sunshine State, but none of Newt’s supporters that afternoon in Fort Myers seemed to suspect that the former House Speaker’s campaign was on the verge of a catastrophic collapse. Nothing reported by the news media prepared them for the disasters that swiftly followed Gingrich’s Florida defeat — his Nevada meltdown and his fourth-place February finishes in Minnesota, Maine, and Michigan — leading up to his March 6 wipeout, when Newt won only his home state of Georgia out of 10 contests on “Super Tuesday.” This electoral implosion seemed to happen in slow motion, but it was astonishingly swift in comparison to the long uphill slog that had preceded it. Gingrich had announced his candidacy in May 2011 and campaigned for six months before pulling ahead of Romney in national polls in mid-November. Two months later — after being buried in Iowa by a barrage of attack ads — Gingrich re-emerged as the victor Jan. 21 in South Carolina. But then it all fell apart in the span of seven weeks, so that on March 13, despite an all-out effort, Newt was defeated in Mississippi and Alabama, which his campaign spokesman had previously described as “must win” states. None of those impending humiliations seemed foreshadowed on that sunny Monday before the Florida primary, when hundreds gathered in the parking lot at Page Field to welcome Gingrich to Fort Myers. Newt was still the front-runner, the Jan. 30 Real Clear Politics average of national polls showing him with 30.3 percent to Romney’s 27.8 percent. While the polls in Florida clearly indicated that Romney would win the Sunshine State, the conventional wisdom on the eve of the primary was that the fight for the GOP nomination had now come down to a two-man race between Mitt and Newt. Rick Santorum, who narrowly won the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3, had seemingly failed to capitalize on that victory, barely edging out Gingrich for fourth place in New Hampshire and then placing a distant third in South Carolina. Santorum cut short his Florida campaign for a trip home to visit his 3-year-old daughter, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia, and most of the pundits were ready to write off the former Pennsylvania senator. As had so often been the case in the long 2012 campaign, however, the conventional wisdom was wrong. Today, when Newt’s presidential hopes have evaporated and conservative leaders are reportedly seeking some way Santorum can still stop Romney from becoming the Republican nominee, it is possible to look back to that January afternoon in Florida and see how badly the pundits were mistaken. Santorum’s low-budget campaign, which had made it through 2011 with just $2.1 million in contributions, proved more resourceful than Gingrich’s better-funded operation, which had collected about $12.7 million in 2011. Federal Election Commission reports showed the Gingrich campaign began January with more than $2.1 million cash on hand, compared to less than $280,000 for Santorum. When those reports became public at the end of January, many observers concluded that Newt was best positioned to go the distance against Romney’s big-money organization — a perception that the Gingrich campaign was eager to amplify. On Jan. 31, the day of the Florida primary, Newt’s spokesman announced that the campaign had raised $10 million in the final three months of 2011 and another $5 million in January. This was true, and anyone could see from the FEC report released that day how much Gingrich had raised in 2011, but the official report for January wasn’t due until Feb. 20. A CBS News reporter noted at the time that Gingrich’s spokesman “did not, however, provide an amount for the campaign’s cash-on-hand.” So the question of how fast Newt’s campaign was spending its money — the “burn rate” — in January would remain unanswered for another three weeks. No one seemed to realize at the time that Gingrich’s burn rate was unsustainable, although the signs should have been obvious that Monday at the airport in Fort Myers. Driving to Gingrich’s rally that afternoon, I had listened to Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and remarked on my blog that “the commercial breaks were pretty much wall-to-wall attack ads, Mitt vs. Newt and Newt vs. Mitt. It seemed as if the anti-Newt ads were the majority.” In fact, Romney’s campaign and its allied “super PAC” were outspending Gingrich and his super PAC more than 3-to-1on advertising in Florida. Newt’s forces could ill afford the reported $2.2 million they spent on ads in the Sunshine State, and they were also spending big money for the candidate to travel across Florida for campaign events in a state where polls clearly indicated Gingrich would lose by a double-digit margin. On that Monday before the primary, Newt and his entourage were flying around Florida aboard a 16-seat Gulfstream jet for five rallies — in Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tampa, Fort Myers and Orlando — which drew a combined attendance estimated at less than 1,500. The Fort Myers event may have been the best-attended stop on Gingrich’s tour that day. The crowd at Page Field warmly applauded Newt and his guests, former presidential candidate Herman Cain and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Reagan, but Gingrich’s speech was notable for his resentful remarks toward Romney. Newt spoke of himself as leading a “grassroots populist” effort against Mitt and the “Establishment” in a battle between his campaign’s “people power” and Romney’s “money power.” Gingrich gave his supporters a conspiracy-theory explanation of the Romney campaign’s fundraising advantage. Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street financial interests that had accepted federal bailout money were now paying for Mitt’s negative campaign ads, Gingrich said. “Those ads are your money recycled to attack me,” he told the Fort Myers crowd, promising that as president he would demand a “thorough audit” to find out “where the money went.” No one in the Fort Myers audience seemed worried about where Newt’s money was going, which eventually proved a far more serious problem. Three weeks later, when the Gingrich campaign filed its next FEC report on Feb. 20, the campaign reported that while it had received $5.6 million in January, it had spent $ 5.9 million — an average of $190,000 a day — even while the campaign’s debt was increasing. Although Newt’s campaign had entered 2012 with $2.1 million cash on hand, it had also begun the year with $1.2 million in unpaid bills, so that the net balance was $900,000. In January, however, even while the Gingrich campaign’s expenses were outstripping contributions by $320,000, Newt also added another $527,000 in new debt. Thus, while his FEC report showed Gingrich ended January with about $1.8 million cash on hand, this amount exceeded the campaign’s total debt by only $62,505. Furthermore, although there was no way to know it at the time, Newt’s fundraising had already passed its peak. On Jan. 22, the day after he won the South Carolina primary, Gingrich collected more than $400,000, the peak of a nine-day period (Jan. 19-27) when the campaign’s contributions averaged about $198,000 a day. But his fundraising slumped slightly after Newt fared poorly in two Florida debates (Jan. 23 in Tampa and Jan. 26 in Jacksonville), then dropped sharply after Romney defeated Gingrich by 14 points in the Florida primary. During the first seven days of February, contributions to Gingrich’s campaign averaged less than $64,000 a day and, during the next seven-day period of Feb. 8-14, dropped below $35,000 a day– a disastrous decline for a campaign that had been spending more than it took in even during its fundraising peak. Still, during those weeks when Newt was losing caucuses in Nevada Feb. 4, Colorado and Missouri on Feb. 7, and Maine on Feb. 11, no one outside the Gingrich campaign realized how bad their financial situation had become. Newt’s unsustainable “burn rate” in January drew little notice when his FEC report for the month was made public on Feb. 20. Another month went past before the publication of Gingrich’s February report showed that the campaign was essentially bankrupt, owing more debt than it had cash on hand. From late January until the Tuesday before the March 24 Louisiana primary, Newt’s campaign maintained an illusion of financial viability. We are still two weeks away from the publication of the next FEC reports that will reveal how much worse the situation got before March 27, when Gingrich announced the exit of his campaign manager and a third of his staff. The spin from Newt’s spokesman was that this “redesigned” campaign was still aiming to go “all the way to Tampa,” but it seems highly unlikely Gingrich will make it to the August GOP convention on his own dime. Newt suffered another embarrassment yesterday when a health-care think tank he created in 2003, the Center for Health Transformation, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy . His campaign pointed out that Gingrich ended his role in the center when he launched his presidential bid in May, but its bankruptcy was still a public-relations debacle, prompting University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock to joke, “While health-care costs have bankrupted many without insurance, Gingrich may be the first to go broke studying health-care delivery.” ALL OF THIS BACKGROUND is necessary to understanding the end game for what is left of Gingrich’s campaign. According to a New York Times account of a Thursday meeting between Santorum and conservative leaders , “the discussion focused on how Mr. Santorum could win the race and what role Mr. Gingrich might play.” However, it was reported last week that Newt met secretly with Romney the morning of the Louisiana primary. The prospect that Gingrich could be persuaded to drop out and throw his support to Santorum — who must win the April 24 primary in Pennsylvania to keep his campaign alive — therefore appears remote. If Newt’s campaign is now deeply in debt, it is far more likely he would endorse Romney in exchange for a promise of future financial assistance rather than to risk alienating the Republican Party leadership by backing Santorum’s underdog campaign. The clock is ticking, and we are today two weeks away from the FEC report that will disclose just how bad the Gingrich campaign’s financial plight became in March. Whatever bargaining power Newt has will almost certainly expire once that April 20 report becomes public. Romney could decide he can finish off Santorum without Gingrich’s help, and leave Newt to pay off his own campaign debts. We are therefore likely to learn pretty soon whether the man who called himself a “grassroots populist” in Florida is now willing to make a deal with the “Establishment” and its “money power.”
More here:
Gingrich and the ‘Money Power’
