Newt Gingrich sees hope for the middle-class --and Newt Gingrich-- in the Supreme Court's corporate-spending-in-elections decision. While he's at it, he smears Obama's small-donor base as well. Will he run?
Did I hear this right? Newt Gingrich, on All Things Considered, defending the Supreme Court's ruling that the government may not ban election spending by corporations because:
"This will, in fact, level the playing field and allow middle-class candidates to begin to have an opportunity to raise the resources to take on the powerful and the rich."
Historian Gingrich rewrites history by telling listeners that during the 2008 election:
"The president spent money that was donated through to a variety of organizations, including MoveOn.org, by very, very rich people."
It's important to remember how the press during the campaign, with help from conservative news sources, jumped all over Obama's claims that small donors made up a substantial part of his fund raising. A post-election study from The Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University found:
Obama had over 3.7 million donors compared to slightly fewer than 827,000 for McCain. Those donors in turn contributed just under $700 million to Obama and $316 million to McCain. But the gap was widest among small donors. Donations from individuals giving $200 or less represented nearly a quarter ($178 million) of Obama's fundraising total but only 7% ($35 million) of McCain's.
And when the Campaign Finance Institute study that was quoted by so many articles as busting the "myth"of Obama's small-donor juggernaught was updated earlier this month:
According to a new study released today by the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI), about one-third (34 percent) of the $337 million the Obama campaign raised from individuals for the general election came from donors who gave the general election campaign a total of $200 or less. (Almost all presidential campaign contributions come from individuals, with only a scattering from political committees.) The $114 million Obama received from these $200-or-less donors exceeded the $85 million his Republican opponent, John McCain, received as his campaign's full public funding for the general election.
It's not enough for Gingrich to put a mirror up to the Court's decision and see everything backwards (notice he never once uses the word "corporation" in the entire interview). He makes light of the small donor who, as a result of the decision, will most certainly have her/his influence reduced to zero. Oh, and Gingrich had one other thing to say in the interview:
BLOCK: And would that include you? Are you now thinking more seriously about a campaign?
Mr. GINGRICH: I might. We have to wait and see. If there's a movement for real change and if there's a real sense that we can recruit candidates at every level to change things, then (unintelligible), I would certainly have to look at it very seriously..
Maybe as a candidate, Gingrich could get even more media coverage than, as a disgraced, former Speaker of the House currently holding no office, he has now.
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