Charles Krauthammer Schools Jeanne Cummings: Gingrich Won in SC Because of Debates Not Money
Bloomberg's Jeanne Cummings got a much-needed lesson Friday about money not being everything in politics.
After she claimed on PBS's Inside Washington that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's revival in the race was all due to multimillion dollar donations from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer correctly replied that the former Speaker's ascendancy resulted from his debate performances in South Carolina not money (video follows with transcript and commentary):
GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Sheldon Adelson, let me give you that name, Jeanne. There’s money involved here, is that what has been keeping Newt Gingrich going?
JEANNE CUMMINGS, BLOOMBERG: Definitely. The change in the campaign finance laws we’ve talked about with these outside Super PACS that can take an unlimited amount of money have really changed this presidential campaign. Newt Gingrich was broke in September. He was in fourth place in Iowa. He was in fourth place in New Hampshire. He walked into South Carolina with no money and no momentum. And then a casino mogul billionaire, Mr. Adelson, comes in with $5 million that he drops into Gingrich’s PAC, and all of a sudden we have a campaign revived. Then after he won, after Gingrich did win South Carolina, Adelson’s wife dropped another $5 million into the friendly political committee that’s backing Gingrich. So they are basically floating a presidential candidate. We have never seen this before. Under any other cycle, Gingrich would have been forced out of the field after Iowa or certainly after New Hampshire because of a lack of funds.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: With all due respect, I disagree entirely. In fact, the two drops of $5 million produced a controlled experiment. There was a drop into him early in South Carolina, but the reason there was a 30 point swing in South Carolina was not the money he bought with the ads. It was the incredible moments he had in the two debates, the Juan Williams and the John King moment. That was the entire explanation for why he went up 30 points. And wait, I'm only halfway through.
PETERSON: It’s only a half-hour show.
[Laughter]
KRAUTHAMMER: A controlled experiment has two parts. Alright, so he has the money in South Carolina, and he wins. He had the same amount dropped in in this other state, and he is going to lose it because he had terrible performances in the debates. The money was irrelevant. It was what he did in the debates.
Krauthammer of course was correct, but this raises a larger point.
The liberal media are going to whenever possible credit a Republican candidate's success with money regardless of it being true or not.
Unfortunately, unless there is someone around like Krauthammer to counter the falsehood if campaign finances weren't responsible, the viewer will be misinformed.
Get used to it.
Associate Editor’s note: As you are likely aware, since the financial collapse of 2008, charities and non-profit organizations have seen a sharp reduction in donations. Although the environment has improved, contributions are still nowhere near where they were prior to the recession. Unfortunately, the Media Research Center has not been immune. With this in mind, your support has become more important than ever. With a critical election approaching, the liberal media needs to be monitored 24/7. As we have been predicting for months, the press are willing to do anything to get their beloved politicians elected and/or reelected. As such, we need your help to fight this fight. Any contribution, even $10, is greatly appreciated. Please consider a tax-deductible gift to the Media Research Center to help us battle the liberal media. Thank you.
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Comments
Money??
Submitted by Joe W. on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:14pm.
And, of course, who has the most money to buy an election with? Barack HUSSEIN Obama. And she claims we've never seen this before?? We saw it in 2008. But Dr. Krauthammer is spot on, as usual. Newt won on the issues and his ability to articulate them. Whether or not he is right about the Florida Primary remains to be seen. I still believe that Newt will win in Florida. But, that's why we have elections, is it not? We'll find out soon enough.
Whatever money Newt spent
Submitted by zenman1661 on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:37pm.
in SC, I'm sure Romney spent more and he lost big. Of course, Charles is right, again.
MSM Money Fuels the Demcrat Party
Submitted by Guapo Diablo on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:45pm.
"The liberal media are going to whenever possible credit a Republican candidate's success with money regardless of it being true or not."
Take this a step farther, but switch parties and you'll understand why she said that (projection). Has anyone ever tried to calculate the amount of money the MSM saves democrat candidates year after year? During a general election ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC/NY Times, etc must save the democrat candidate hundreds of millions.
At first.....
Submitted by GregE on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:02pm.
.......Gingrich's fire and quick wit and historical perspective in debates were huge in his climb in the polls, and huge in his SC win. His performances were impressive. As usual, when you rise to the top, the media microscopes come blazing.
Romney came back at him very well in the last debate, and his team obviously saw it was effective. That will be the norm now, or it should be if Romney and his team are paying attention. If Gingrich embellishes and/or twists facts or overstates, he sees now that he'll get it thrown back at him, so he's going to have to be more careful and factual, AND know the factual or non-factual nature of Romney's statements in order to properly rebutt and so as not to get it tossed back in his face. Does he have the organization to get him good rebuttal info? That is the question.
But this is a good thing for the voter. We need proper info. Romney has more of an organization to do that research, which is going to make it harder for Gingrich to have the ammo to respond to non-factual statements.
I will not vote for who has the wittiest comebacks. Of course, I'm in VA, where the ballot has two names on it, Romney and Paul, so my choices have been limited. I support Santorum at this point so it's most likely that I won't be voting.
"As usual, when you rise to
Submitted by celator on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 6:23pm.
"As usual, when you rise to the top, the media microscopes come blazing." Which is OK by me, as long as it's fair and they do the same with Obama once the R nominee is in the saddle. But, as you know, that won't be the case. The MSM will present Obama with a magic carpet so he can fly away from criticism, and they will give the R nominee a heavy sack of rocks to carry around.
You're right, Greg
Submitted by deadeyedan on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:32pm.
The scrutiny does come with rising to the top. And Newt's people need to check with Newt himself before lobbing volleys at the enemy.
It's rather depressing that Newt's intention to run an honorable, substance-oriented campaign from the start ran into the Romney/Ron Paul SuperPACs at the very onset.
He's not comfortable with the way the playing field shifted. The way he engineered the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-'90's and the way he was able to make it pay off were the result of his being something of a bully but was far more so because of his fact-based persuasive powers. In doing so he was bound to make enemies (just look at the minutiae they're desparately trying to dig up on him, all thrown out of context).
When he shows those traits he wins without a problem. We can hope that Republicans will not only recognize his past successes but the fact that he took a beating back then (often from establishment Republicans) and knowing full well they would ferociously attack again, come back into the fray - something which took a fair amount of intestinal fortitude.
It's clear from his keen awareness of what has been going on that he spent his last several years studying the situation carefully and his concern for our nation and its people has aroused in him the courage to come back and fight those forces bent on preventing our nation and its citizens from being the exceptional representative of liberty that we are.
LIBERALISM - government of the people by the theories and for the ideologists