On Freddie Mac, based on what we know to date, probably the worst that can be said about Newt Gingrich’s consulting work is that he was feeding at the Beltway trough. It doesn’t look like he was lobbying on their behalf, which was the original accusation. It looks like he was paid a lot of money that ultimately came from the taxpayers, to render advice that in the end wasn’t followed.
McCormick: Do you think you were sort of being bought to just be there and be a friendly voice?”
Gingrich: “No, I don’t think that anymore than your institution is being bought by the people who advertise in it.”
The New York Time’s Trip Gabriel: “Do you recall any of the strategic advice you did give?…Expanding housing for low-income Hispanic communities, for example?”
Gingrich: “Well, first of all, if you can do it in a way that is financially sound, every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities for people whether they’re African American, or Latino or of any background so the idea that you’re thinking about how can we help people learn how to budget, how can we help people learn how to save, how could you help them learn how to maintain a house on a low income would strike me, for more people, would be good things to do, not bad things to do and I’m happy to say I made public speeches to the National Association of Home Builders. I’m in favor of the largest possible home ownership. This is all public knowledge. I’m in favor of doing the right kind of things and you can go talk to Rick Lazio about the support I gave him as speaker on housing reform which he pushed through despite opposition of some of the people like Barney Frank and others, so I think the record there is one of I’m pretty consistent and frankly, I tend to give the same strategic advice in private I give in public.”
….AP’s Tom Beaumont: “Does this remind you that your background comes from being a Washington insider?”
Gingrich: “It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington and if you want to change Washington, we just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn’t work very well, so having somebody who knows Washington might be a really good thing.”
It may be that Fannie/Freddie hired Gingrich for the express purpose of neutralizing him as a critic. He would not have known that that was their motivation, if it was their motivation. I’m just saying that it’s a possibility. Conservatives had been openly question the GSE’s practices since 2005 or so; hiring Gingrich may have been a way to take one of the biggest conservative guns out of the fight. And for Newt, the consultancy was both a chance to make money and a chance to advise them.
Whatever is the case, isn’t the AP’s Tom Beaumont just a gem with that question about being “reminded” that Gingrich is a “Washington insider?” Would Beaumont ever ask a similar question of Nancy Pelosi, regarding her Visa IPO or anything else?
On a veep choice, well, it’s way too soon to ask and that’s how Gingrich ends up answering when asked whether a Gingrich/Cain ticket is a possibility.
As for the chances that there could be a Gingrich-Cain ticket, or a Cain-Gingrich ticket, Gingrich asserts: “I think that’s a real possibility. I think there are other possibilities. There are several very good candidates running for president.
“We have a number of great potential [vice presidential] candidates, people like Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, so you really don’t want to preclude looking at a number of people.
“I think there are a lot of folks out there in the Republican Party, and a number of them would be very good vice presidents and frankly good presidents.”
Gingrich says he and Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney are “very different in our approaches” to governance.
“I’ve been a consistent conservative for a very long time,” Gingrich says. “I probably come at this from a different perspective as a national conservative than Mitt does. Mitt is a fine person and was a good manager, but we do approach things in very different ways.”
That sounds like a very gentle “No” to the Cain question, and otherwise a polite reminder that Newt is to Mitt’s right on policy without getting personal about it. Well handled.
Speculation time: In the last few weeks we’ve seen a succession of candidates emerge and solidify some support, only to get hit hard with something in the press. First it was Rick Perry and the rock, next it was Herman Cain and the harassment allegations, and now it’s Newt Gingrich and his consultancy for Freddie Mac. In all three cases, the blaring headlines really didn’t live up to the substance of the stories, but they did do damage to the candidates who were attacked. Through it all, fingers have been pointed in various directions, mostly from the Cain camp to Perry’s, but only one campaign on the GOP side has consistently benefited from these attacks. That campaign has had five years and adequate money to do oppo research on every conceivable GOP candidate.
It’s possible that these attacks aren’t connected, or that they have come from more than one source. But it’s hard to ignore the pattern here, that Romney’s campaign has the motive and the means to carry out this type of hit against opponents. His campaign is run by several RNC veterans too, pros who know the DC press and how to use them to wage media war.
Newt’s not (yet?) my pick, but have to say, I admire and respect the way he deftly diverts and deflects the media’s efforts to get him to trash talk the other contenders.
It’d be nice to see said others adopt a similiar approach and handle it so smoothly.
“Well, first of all, if you can do it in a way that is financially sound, every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities for people…..
And this is supposed to be the thoughts of a great mind? What he’s talking about is continued subsidization and the creation of continuing opportunities for fraud and malfeasance on the part of government and mortgage lenders.
“how could you help them learn how to maintain a house on a low income would strike me, for more people, would be good things to do, …”
Great, expanded bureaucracy and social engineering. Why doesn’t Newt just declare himself a compassionate conservative and be done with it.
This is why I can’t vote for the guy, a vote for Newt is a vote to maintain the status quo.
Can we get a GOP candidate who would answer that question with “The Days of Gov’t ‘encouraging’ home ownership” are over?
Newt, the astute. Seasoned, well informed, done his homework, sharp debater, decent character. He just doesn’t look like a President. He looks like a wise, self-satisfied, wealthy Grandpa. To the anti-elitist T Partiers and the swing voters he looks like a poster boy for the RNC. He’ll be a great choice for Veep.
Prediction.
The msm is going to stop giving Newt a chance to defend himself. They will just make the attacks and then never ask him anything about them.
It may come down to them never interviewing him at all, since he is so much smarter than any of them that he will be able to turn any question into a defense against the latest attack.
Likewise, I don’t think they will be covering many more Cain press conferences. He’s too good at those. They will mainly tear him down in private sessions where the bait and switch sneak attack is easier to pull off.
The way things are going today, it looks like the GOP ticket will be Romney and ? Is that really the best we can do? On the other hand, Romney may well be the most electable of the possible GOP Presidential candidates. Assuming that my choice in November 2012 will be someone versus 0, I fully intend to vote for someone.
Romney and ?… the unknown. I probably wouldn’t vote for Romney in the general but would focus on a veto proof Tea Party Congress.
Only a devout Cain-hater could read that and interpret it as a gentle “no.”
Just can’t have the simpletons mingling with the political class, can we?
– Sen. Rubio ought to be someone’s veep choice. He politely but firmly spanked Mika’s slavic butt on Morn Joe today when she tried a gotcha on him. Would set him up to run with a good GOP governor in 2016 after we lose next year.
The thing that “hit Rick Perry hard” was not “the rock”–a ridiculous and transparent BS story from the beginning. What “hit Rick Perry hard” was Rick Perry.
Rick Perry is perfectly willing to subsidize illegal aliens to the tune of $100,000 per for a college education for a job they can’t legally hold. At the University of Texas alone, there are (at last count) 612 illegal aliens taking Texas taxpayer money. There are roughly 16,500 illegal aliens participating in this program in the 2011 academic year.
That’s a lot of taxpayer money being given by Rick Perry to people who are in this country illegally.
Perry thinks opposing this giveaway is “heartless.” But being for it is brainless.
That clown is Texas toast. And he deserves to be. He cooked himself.
‘Invincible ignorance cannot be enlightened’, but I can keep trying.
‘Illegal’ by definition includes a willful intent. Illegal aliens don’t come here with a diploma; they don’t come here for a diploma; they come here for a job. They are here illegally, but we can’t do anything about it of any real significance until we secure the border. Despite the best efforts of Texas & some other states, that won’t happen until the Feds stop ignoring their duty to protect the border.
Children who are brought here by their parents have no willful intent to be illegals. They are raised in Texas & they are actual residents. I have known some of them – many that I know can barely speak Spanish & have never been to Mexico (though there are many fifth-generation citizens who can barely speak English either). I know many people – productive citizens in every respect, fully raised & accepting of the American culture as much as anyone with say German ancestry – whose grandparents were illegals. What’s the cut-off?
Would you rather subsidise a growing population of people – about 1.6 million in Texas alone – who are off the grid? Or bring this new generation into our society as productive citizens? Your argument falls in line with those who wanted to pack up all the slaves after the Civil War & ship them back to Africa.
The programme is set for children here before the age of 13, in high school for at least 3 years, graduating with a diploma, & actively pursuing bona fide citizenship. As students in college, they are not subsidised by taxpayer money. Instead, they pay the same rate as any other resident. Actually, there are several states who do this in one way or another. Here in Oregon, all college students at the U of O or Oregon State, for example, pay in-state tuition after being a resident for one year. It doesn’t matter if you’re from California or China. This idea that they’re paid $100,000 to go to college in Texas is BS. They can get jobs too – a woman I work with in the Oregon state government has worked here for two years, & just proudly obtained her citizenship papers.
There are two sets of problems. In order to stop the flow of illegal immigration, you have to secure the border – period. All other arguments & efforts are wasteful; you’re just spinning your wheels. I know one Mexican who has been deported three times, & was just arrested again recently – in Oregon. If it’s that bad in Oregon, how much worse is it in Texas & the other border states? Or for that matter, in states like Illinois, where I know of several senior citizens who have been ‘illegals’ there for over fifty years. Just building a fence isn’t the answer – if you build a bigger fence, they’ll just bring a bigger ladder. But really secure the border, then we can realistically talk about (& take action) to deal with people who come here illegally. We should start the conversation with the original intent of the 14th Amendment – no more automatic citizenship to anchor babies.
But for the children raised here, they’re here & there’s nothing we can do about it except try to make them the productive citizens that many want to be. The Feds want to ignore it while it gets worse. If, then, you can’t fight them, then have them join us; co-opt the problem.
But if nothing else, get your story straight.