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| Newt Gingrich and wife Callista at the Kennedy Center Honors (Begs the question- how much do you think her necklace her cost her? And did it come in a little blue box?) (linked to source: FreeRepublic.com) |
Newt Gingrich is whining that he is losing in Iowa because
Mitt Romney is "buying the election" and that he (Gingrich) has been "Romney-boated" (a terrible play on words with John Kerry's "swift boating" problems). Specifically, Gingrich told reporters in Iowa that Romney “would buy an election, if he could," and repeated himself later.
Sure, it seems like an easy enough stab, after all Romney is worth up to $250 million. But Gingrich is about $6.7 million. But then, Romney's staff didn't up and quit on him after he declared his candidacy and went on a Greek cruise. (That would be Gingrich.)
“Someone who will lie to you to get to be president,” Gingrich said, “will lie to you when they are president.”
Tough words from a man who keeps saying over and over again that he will run a clean campaign without any attack ads. Apparently running attack ads and calling your competition a liar are not the same thing.
Gingrich said the amount Romney will eventually spend on his various
campaigns will rival the spending of billionaire New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who has poured at least $261 million of his own money
into his mayoral campaigns. Again, big accusations considering, well, everything, starting with Romney is only worth $250 million. (May that be the only time in my life I say "
only worth" $250 million.) For the record, Gingrich's campaign pulled in $10 million in fundraising last quarter alone.
Gingrich also said, [My weakness is] "probably that I’m too reasonable. And I should’ve responded to the negative ads sooner."
And by respond to the negative ads, one can only assume he means that he should have outwardly and obviously attacked the front-runner sooner. Or maybe he means that he should have run a more effective and efficient campaign sooner, made the deadlines in Virginia and Missouri, not gone millions into campaign debt by flying on chartered jets, and actually spent time stumping with the people, rather than courting the national media.
Meanwhile, Gingrich is about to lose to
Rick Santorum, who has raised just $700,000 in the third quarter.
Yes, Gingrich, who brought in $10 million is losing to Rick Santorum who raised $700,000.
While we're at it here are all the campaign's THIRD quarter filings -
Rick Perry - $17 million
Romney - $14 million
Herman Cain disappointed the people who donated $2.8M to him.
Ron Paul brought in $2.8 million.
Michele Bachmann raised $4.1M (but spent $6M- what is it she keeps saying about no debt and balancing the budget?)
Jon Huntsman, Jr. - raised $2.2M, and loaned his campaign another $2.6.
Gingrich - $800,000ish (but then, he was in Greece for a few weeks, and off on a book tour for a good portion of the quarter)
President Obama raised $70 million for himself and the DNC in that same time period.
I will admit yes, Gingrich's $10M is an expected number, released by his campaign for the fourth quarter. And Santorum's $700K is third quarter. But seriously, does anyone really think Santorum did too much better than that in the fourth quarter? They only just barely raised enough money to hire a high school student to make their first campaign ad for them last week!
Mitt Romney said it best, "
This is an election, however, that’s not being driven by money
raised — it’s being driven by message, connection with the voters,
debate and experience."
It is no surprise that the three men winning in Iowa are the three that have put in the most amount of time in Iowa.
*DISCLAIMER* the figures in this post are as accurate as I could make them. However, it must be noted that there is a lot of confusing information out there regarding fundraising. Campaigns will often speculate rather optimistically about how much they *think* they will make in a quarter, and it will get quoted by bloggers as facts. Also, oftentimes an accumulated number over all campaigning is printed, rather than just the amount specific to one quarter. To the best of my knowledge the information above is accurate to the quarter stated. Campaign fourth quarter filings are due immediately, and will be released in a few weeks. Only the $10M figure for Gingrich is speculation, and stated by his campaign. The rest are, to the best of my ability, specific numbers to 3Q.
