Yesterday Jed posted a diary about Newt Gingrich's million dollar website and spam machine. That prompted me to go through Gingrich's FEC disclosure and figure out where the money went to.
In my opinion about a quarter of that amount was a kickback to pay their Tiffany's bill.
From I can see, no reporter ever saw the actually Tiffany's bill. All we know is that from Calista's 2007 House disclosure form that she self-disclosed that Newt's debt to Tiffany's debt ranged from $250,001-500,000.
According to Gingrich's FEC disclosure the campaign blew $631,929.41 on web expenses (not quite a million Jed).
By contrast Michelle Bachman spent just $4,687.75 to Campaign Solutions in Alexandria, Virginia; an entirely reasonable amount.
Now Mitt Romney was up in the Gingrich realm dropping $445,854.41 on various web services. $25,851.41 was on commonplace stuff like Citrix, Skype, Flickr, etc. $90,518 was paid to Romney's own Free & Strong America PAC for web development (that raises a red flag in my head, because that seems to me that that was just Romney giving himself a salary). By far the bulk of Romney's internet cash, $329,485, went to Targeted Victory for "web development". I actually think that that description is a typo as I believe Targeted Victory is a full-service advertising agency doing TV, radio, direct mail, and web.
Then again as Obama 2012 gave $775,000 to Bully Pulpit for Online Ads that I've never seen, so maybe Mitt and Newt did blow hundreds of thousands on online ads as well. In the entirety of the 2008 campaign Obama spent $8,474,282.04 on web and internet expenses, and that includes expenses for running a highly successful web store.
Let's breakdown Newt's $631,929.41.
The expenditure that I find most questionable is the $285,000 in 4 payments (5-12, 5-17, 5-26, 6-13) for "website management" paid to High Tech Win LLC in Austin, Texas. The problem is that High Tech Win is not a web developer of any kind. It is a home remodeling business run by Harry Dale Langley Jr. who is probably better known in Austin as an IP lawyer. That amount nicely covers a $250,001 Tiffany's bill with a kickback fee to Mr. Langley for his discretion.
Newt also paid $210,250 in two payments (4-20, 5-6) to VM Media Inc., a company that actually does web work managing Facebook pages and Twitter feeds owned by James Eustace. The vendor and description don't raise red flags on this one, I'm fairly certain this amount was for a Facebook advertising campaign that netted Newt nothing. (Sidenote: Q-why does Facebook make money? A-Suckers like Newt.)
Then there is the $110,000 paid to Fuzebox LLC in Atlanta. As a web developer in Newt's home state of Georgia this would make absolute sense except according the Wayback Machine this company's website has been down for over two years. Not confidence inspiring. However CEO Les Ottolenghi "has led a campaign strategy for the upcoming Presidential election". If that strategy was "fleece Newt" then he succeeded wildly.
Newt's other web expenditures: $18,000 in hosting to Rackspace which is actually a real company. Though I can't imagine why he's paying over 4 times more than Bachmann for hosting. For the traffic he gets he could get by with the $7/month plan my company uses.
And finally $8,400 to Calista on April 27 for WEB DEVELOPMENT photography. Cute how he hides his grifting.
Only the hosting payment to Rackspace (6-23) came after his staff quit en masse on June 9.