Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

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What happened to the ethics charges against Newt Gingrich?

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Here are the facts from Legal Insurrection.

Excerpt:

So Romney is going on attack.  The centerpiece will be Newt Gingrich’s consent to a single ethics violation (out of 84 charged) in the 1990s.  The process was highly politicized by Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi.  Newt ultimately was vindicated by the IRS on the issue, but you wouldn’t know it from Romney’s speech yesterday in Florida:

“Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader,” the former  Massachusetts governor said. “He was a leader for four years as speaker of the  House. And at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader  and he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that, he  actually resigned after four years, in disgrace.

Romney continued:

“He was investigated over an ethics panel and had to make a  payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of his  Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of  successful leadership.”

In 1999, Brent Bozell wrote a great column about how the media covered up Newt’s vindication, Newt Is Vindicated, But Nobody Knows It:

The judgment is in. After three and a half years of investigation, the IRS has cleared Newt Gingrich and his allied nonprofit groups of any violation of the tax laws in the controversy over his television history course “Renewing American Civilization.”

So after having run countless news reports highlighting the accusations that ultimately forced Gingrich to pay a $300,000 fine, did the media correct the record with a decent airing of the decision? Are you ready? ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted exactly zero seconds to Newt Gingrich’s vindication. Only CNN’s Brooks Jackson filed a decent TV report, on the early-evening show “Inside Politics.” …

Gingrich issued a statement that clearly expressed his feelings: “I consider this a full and complete vindication. I urge my colleagues to go back and read their statements and watch how they said them, with no facts, based on nothing more than a desire to politically destroy a colleague.”

But the damage hadn’t been done simply by devious politicians like Bonior, but by journalists. In the face of Newt’s innocence, some reporters couldn’t muster even a regret.

Bozell followed up that column last month, noting that the media continues to hide Newt’s vindication.

It has been 4,689 days since the IRS formally cleared Newt Gingrich of any  violation of tax law.  It’s been 4,689 days since ABC, CBS, and NBC have  had the opportunity to report it. What the heck.  Why not today?  Now  is the time for these networks to report the truth for once.  The networks  owe it to the American people to report the fact that in 1999 the IRS completely  vindicated Gingrich.

Between December 15, 1996 and January 31, 1997 the network morning and  evening newscasts filed a staggering 244 stories. Total number of network  stories on the news that Newt was completely innocent? Zero. That’s beyond  pathetic. Oh and what about CNN?  We found that the cable  network filed one — count ‘em, one — story. They’re probably exhausted by all  that effort, so we’ll let them off the hook.

Now you can add to the list the Romney campaign, which uses the worst of Nancy Pelosi’s machinations to its advantage, and like the mainstream media, hides the truth.

What does it say about Romney that he would smear Newt with charges that were obviously politically motivated – pressed by radical leftist Democrat Nancy Pelosi? Well, it says that Romney is desperate and lacks honesty and integrity.

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Why Mitt Romney lost to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina

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A couple of days ago, Mitt Romney was leading by 14 points in South Carolina – and he lost it by 12 points. What happened?

First, here’s a snippet from Gingrich’s victory speech:

“One of the key issues and I’m prepared to take this straight at the president and frankly straight at the elite media. One of the key issues is the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites, and if you go to newt.org, my campaign site there’s a 54-page paper there on the balance of power, putting the judiciary back in its proper role in eliminating dictatorial bigots such as justice Berry in San Antonio who issued a ruling not only could the students not pray at their graduation, if they used the word “benediction” the word “invocation,” the word “God,” asked the audience to stand or a moment of silence he would put the superintendent in jail. Now we don’t have speech dictatorship in America by anti-religious bigots, period.

The second big theme, frankly, is one that every South Carolinian understands. It’s jobs, economic growth, balancing the budget, having stable money, and let’s be very clear, and again this makes some of the elite media nervous. President Obama has been historically the most effective food stamp president in American history. I worked with ronald reagan to create jobs and 16 million jobs were created by the American people in the 1980s. i worked with Bill Clinton, a democrat to create jobs and 11 million jobs were created by the American people during the four years that I was speaker.

I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history and I want to go into every neighborhood of every ethnic background in every part of the country and say to people very simply, if you want your children to have a life of dependency and food stamps, you have a candidate as Barack Obama. If you want your children to have a life of independency and paychecks, you have a candidate that’s Newt Gingrich, and I’ll bet you we have votes everywhere.”

That’s red meat for conservatives. We like policy papers and statistics. We like substance and bold contrasts.

Byron York explains how Newt won in the Washington Examiner. (H/T Smitty @ The Other McCain)

Excerpt:

Romney stages perfect events.  For example, on the eve of the primary, Romney’s rally in North Charleston was perfect from a production point of view: stage just right, big flags, big Romney signs, smooth introductions from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, all topped off by a showy entrance by Romney, who arrived in his big campaign bus that drove right into the room.

It was perfect in every sense but engaging with the voters.  Romney’s stump speech was a clipped — some would say dumbed down — list of generalities, concluding with this: “I love this land, I love its Constitution, I revere its founders, I will restore those principles, I will get America back to work, and I’ll make sure that we remain the shining city on the hill.”  Romney offered his supporters very little to chew on.  In this primary race, voters are hungry for substance, and Romney didn’t give them much.

Gingrich’s last event before the voting, a couple of hours later, was a rally on the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown, a World War II aircraft carrier that is now a floating museum across the bay from Charleston.  It was a most un-perfect affair.  To begin with, it just so happened that dozens of Cub Scouts were having an overnight on the Yorktown at the same time as Gingrich and the press showed up for the rally.  Their presence contributed to an air of happy chaos on board, and Gingrich was delighted to invite a few scouts on stage with him at the beginning of his speech.  When Gingrich got to the substance of his remarks, he was wandering, expansive, and detailed, where Romney had been brief and canned.  But Gingrich kept the crowd with him the whole way, and in the end had engaged his audience more than Romney could have hoped for.  Gingrich respected them enough to discuss issues with them seriously.

[…]Gingrich’s success here in South Carolina shows more than just a skepticism toward establishment Republicanism.  It also shows a hunger for real substance in the campaign, for a candidate who will talk to voters and give them more than phrases like “I believe in America.”  Mitt Romney’s team of seasoned campaign professionals may not think Newt Gingrich has any business playing a deciding role in the race.  But they better believe it, and they better take seriously what the Gingrich challenge represents — before it’s too late.

If you listen to Romney closely in debates, he never speaks like Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. With those two, you get specifics. Rick Santorum talks about his efforts to push for balanced budgets or his bill to ban partial birth abortions.  Newt Gingrich talks about the millions of jobs created when he was Speaker of the House and his 98.5% pro-life voting record.

What does Mitt Romney talk about? He never talks about his record – because it’s liberal. He passed socialized medicine with taxpayer subsidies for abortions. He raised taxes by $740 million dollars. He handed out licenses for gay marriages. When he speaks, he talks about how much he loves the United States, and how he would like to achieve results – results he never achieved when he was governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney has a Democrat record.

Note: Gingrich was losing to Romney 43-18 in Florida according to the January 17th CNN poll, but the latest ARG poll has Gingrich up 34.4 to 25.6, and the latest Rasmussen Reports poll has it at 41-32 for Newt. That’s how quickly things change because of a couple of good debates, with some real substance.

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Mitt Romney’s tax returns would make him lose the election to Obama

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Wall Street Banks contributions to Mitt Romney
Wall Street banks make huge contributions to Mitt Romney

From The Hill. (H/T Riehl Worldview)

Excerpt:

It’s important not to overstate the perils Romney faces. He is still by far the best-funded candidate in the race. He has a state-by-state infrastructure that is the envy of his rivals. Even if he were to lose Saturday’s South Carolina primary, he would  likely remain the overall favorite to clinch the nomination.

But the procession of errors has been striking nonetheless — and it has raised concerns among many in the GOP about his vulnerabilities in a general election contest with President Obama.

Most of Romney’s awkwardness has revolved around questions about his wealth. During a heated exchange during a debate last month, he ill-advisedly offered to bet Perry $10,000 that his own account of what he had written in one of his books was correct. Perry declined, saying he was “not in the betting business,” but the episode heightened perceptions that Romney is out of touch with most Americans.

The same pattern keeps cropping up. Earlier this week, he was asked about the effective tax rate he pays on his income, and managed to injure himself twice in the space of a few sentences. First, he acknowledged that his tax rate was “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” He then added: “I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

The first claim was almost certainly true. Romney’s income is believed to come chiefly from long-term investments rather than earned income, and that would indeed make him liable for capital gains tax levied at a 15 percent rate. But it still places the multimillionaire in a more lightly taxed band than many voters — something which Newt Gingrich tried to take advantage of with his mocking proposal to introduce a “Mitt Romney 15 percent flat tax.”

Perhaps even worse was Romney’s “not very much” comment. His latest financial disclosure form, which covered the period from February 2010 to February 2011, revealed that he earned $374,327 for speeches. The sum is approximately seven times the median household income in the United States.

Those remarks had been preceded by a televised debate at which he gave a muddled response about whether he would release his tax returns.

Romney flubbed the tax-return question for a second time at a debate last Thursday, eliciting boos from the crowd when he said he would “maybe” follow the example of his late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when running for the presidency in 1968.

Romney’s mangled syntax on these occasions seems symptomatic of a wider personal unease in discussing his finances. GOP consultants say he needs to get over that discomfort if he is to prove an effective candidate.

Another concern that I have is that Mitt Romney has $20-100 million dollars in his retirement account.

Excerpt:

Like many Americans, Mitt Romney has an individual retirement account. Unlike most Americans, Mr. Romney has between $20.7 million and $101.6 million in it, a big chunk of his fortune.

Experts on estate planning said it is highly unusual to accumulate such a considerable sum in an IRA, an investment vehicle restricted by annual contribution limits. It appears that Mr. Romney’s grew so large mostly because it holds investments in Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he helped start.

[…]Mr. Romney is one of the richest presidential candidates in decades, and his GOP opponents increasingly are trying to turn wealth into a liability. President Barack Obama is expected to do the same if the former Massachusetts governor wraps up the nomination. Mr. Romney’s tax liability has emerged as a debating point in the GOP nominating contest, a proxy for a bigger argument over who should shoulder the nation’s tax burden.

In recent days, Mr. Romney’s rivals have pressed him to release his tax returns. They have attacked him for his role at Bain Capital, the source of his wealth. When Mr. Romney revealed Tuesday that his effective federal income-tax rate had been about 15% in recent years, both the White House and GOP candidates used the number as a cudgel.

[…]Michael Whitty, a lawyer at Vedder Price in Chicago who advises private-equity executives, said it is impossible to determine from Mr. Romney’s public disclosures how the IRA grew so large. Based on its listed holdings, which include many Bain Capital vehicles, Mr. Whitty theorizes Mr. Romney may have invested in Bain funds through a 401(k)-type plan, or directed some of his Bain holdings into such a plan, which he then rolled into an IRA.

How is he going to explain that? This might be one of the reasons why Romney is not releasing his tax returns. He needs to be pounded on this by Gingrich and Santorum until he drops out – we can’t afford to choose a nominee who has no hope of beating Barack Obama.

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