Ken Carr's Daily Read

Newt Gingrich falsely claimed he never favored a federal mandate requiring individuals to have health insurance. Rick Santorum claimed five times more people are seeking free care at Massachusetts hospitals because of Mitt Romney’s health care law — a claim contradicted by official statistics.

Romney repeated a false accusation that President Obama failed to denounce Hamas rocket attacks in a speech to the United Nations. And Santorum insisted that Muslim terrorists are seeking missile bases in Cuba — a wild claim based most likely on mistranslations of an Italian newspaper report.

These were among the factual fouls that we noted as four GOP presidential candidates met for yet another debate. This one, the final debate prior to Florida’s Jan. 31 primary, took place Jan. 26 at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., and was carried live on CNN.

Gingrich Rewrites His Mandate History

Former House Speaker Gingrich claimed he had never favored a federal mandate requiring individuals to obtain health insurance — only a state requirement.

Gingrich: I didn’t advocate federal mandates. I talked about it at a state level …

Not true. Gingrich said “Congress” must require high-income persons to have insurance, not state legislatures. He did so explicitly in a 2007 opinion piece:

Gingrich, June 25, 2007: In order to make coverage more accessible, Congress must do more, including passing legislation to [among other things] require anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year to purchase health insurance or post a bond.

His support for a federal mandate is of long standing. In 1993, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said:

Gingrich, 1993: I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance.

Gingrich was proposing an individual mandate as an alternative to the Clinton administration’s ill-fated health care plan, which was centered on an employer mandate, requiring businesses to provide insurance for their workers. And he held to a similar position as recently as last May, also on “Meet the Press”:

Gingrich, May 15, 2011: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay — help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond … or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

NBC’s David Gregory: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

Gingrich: It’s a variation on it.

If Gingrich was thinking about a state-only mandate, he never said so at the time. And he clearly said “all of us” would be subject to his “variant” of the mandate just last May. We judge that Gingrich is falsifying his own history on this matter.

Santorum Attacks ‘Romneycare’

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum claimed the Massachusetts health care law had quintupled the number who seek free care at hospitals rather than buying coverage.

Santorum: Free ridership has gone up five-fold in Massachusetts. Five times the rate it was before. Why? Because … Because people are ready to pay a cheaper fine and then be able to sign up to insurance, which are now guaranteed under “Romneycare,” than pay high cost insurance, which is what has happened as a result of “Romneycare.”

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said that was “simply impossible” that free riders had gone up, because the percentage of insured residents had increased under the law to 98 percent.

Romney is right. The percentage of insured residents in the state went up from 93.6 percent in 2006, the year the law was enacted, to 98.1 percent in 2010. And data from the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy show a 46 percent decline in the number of free care medical visits paid for by the state’s Health Care Safety Net. The number of inpatient discharges and outpatient visits under the program went from 2.1 million in 2006 to 1.1 million in 2010 (see page 12).

Contradicting Santorum’s claim, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation said in a November report that usage of the state’s free care, or safety net, “fell dramatically, as expected” after the law took effect.

BSBC Foundation report, Nov. 2011: In fact, the number of HSN patient visits at hospitals and community health centers declined by 36 percent in the first full HSN fiscal year of health reform. Over the past three years, HSN utilization has trended upward but is still below pre-reform levels.

A Santorum campaign spokesman pointed us to a Wall Street Journal column by Michael F. Cannon of the libertarian Cato Institute, who stated that “Massachusetts reported a nearly fivefold increase in such free riding after its mandate took effect.” But that doesn’t square with official data just cited. Cannon didn’t specify the time period and so may have referred to some temporary or transitory bump in free riders. We will update this item if we are able to get more information from Cannon.

Santorum blamed the supposed increase in free riders on persons choosing to pay the penalty instead of buying insurance. But that doesn’t square with official state data either. In 2009, only 48,000 residents paid a penalty — 26,000 of them were uninsured for the entire year, and 22,000 for part of the year, according to state figures. Those aren’t big numbers compared with the usage numbers for the Health Care Safety Net — 1.1 million payments in 2010. The evidence doesn’t suggest that those penalty-payers are driving an increase — let alone a “fivefold” one — in reliance on free care.

Romney’s False Rocket Claim, Again

Romney once again falsely accused Obama of saying “nothing” about the Palestinians launching rockets into Israel during a 2009 speech to the United Nations. In fact, Obama said those who suffer include “the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night.”

We called out Romney for this same false claim last year, when he made it at a GOP debate in Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 22.  Here’s the way he worded it this time:

Romney: This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Romney is referring to President Obama’s first-ever address to the United Nations in September 2009, but his claim is still false. We’ll just repeat what we said last time.

Obama not only said, “We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel,” he made specific reference to suffering caused by rocket attacks:

Obama, Sept. 23, 2009: We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It’s not paid by politicians. It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It’s paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own.

Jihadist Missiles in Cuba

Santorum made a wild claim that Cuba is working to harbor Muslim terrorists seeking to develop missile sites.

Santorum: We’re going to reward a country [Cuba] that is now working with these other countries to harbor and bring in Iran and the terrorist — the Jihadists who want to set up missile sites and to set up training camps.

Santorum’s comment sounds very similar to a claim that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann made back in the fall about Hezbollah working with Cuba, and potentially building missile sites within its borders.

Bachmann, Sept. 26, 2011: There’s reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is potentially looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you’re 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don’t want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. This would be foolish.

But according to a report on the Hill’s Briefing Room blog, Bachmann was getting her information from an Italian newspaper that did not report that Hezbollah was developing missile sites in Cuba.

The Hill, Sept. 27, 2011: Bachmann was referring to a report in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, which claimed that Hezbollah was setting up a base in Cuba to target Israelis in Latin America. The article was circulated on some conservative blogs, but did not report that Hezbollah planned to import weapons; rather, the terror operation was said to be oriented around intelligence collection, coordination of the group’s logistics in Latin America and identification forgery.

‘Language of the Ghetto’

Asked about an ad running in Florida that claims Gingrich once said “Spanish is the language of the ghetto,” Romney claimed not to know about the spot, adding, “I doubt that’s my ad.” It is. And that’s not exactly what Gingrich said. He referred to “bilingual” education but not specifically to Spanish.

The Miami Herald reported this week that the Romney campaign released a Spanish-language radio ad in Miami that argues that Ronald Reagan would not have agreed with Gingrich. The Herald translated it as saying, “Reagan would have never offended Hispanics as Gingrich did when he said Spanish is the language of the ghetto.”

The announcer says the ad was “paid for by Romney for President.” And then Romney himself adds at the end, in Spanish, “Soy Mitt Romney. Estoy postulado para presidente y apruebo este mensaje.” Translation: “I’m Mitt Romney. I’m running for president, and I approve this message.”

After a commercial break, CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer noted that his staff had checked, and confirmed the ad was Romney’s. Romney then posed a question to Gingrich: “Did you say what the ad says or not?”

Gingrich said the “language of the ghetto” comment was “taken totally out of context.”

“Oh, OK, he said it,” Romney responded.

Not exactly. Gingrich claimed he never specifically used the word “Spanish” in connection with the phrase “language of the ghetto,” and that he was speaking “in general, about all languages.” That’s true. Gingrich never specifically mentioned Spanish at all. In fact, shortly after making his “ghetto” comment, Gingrich criticized the government for printing ballots in 700 languages.

As Romney said, “Let’s take a look at what he said.”

The comment in question comes from a speech Gingrich gave to the National Federation of American Women on March 31, 2007, which C-SPAN has archived in its video library (the part in question begins around the 24-minute mark).

Gingrich, March 31, 2007: [W]e should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and so they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

That same day, the Associated Press wrote a story — later picked up by the Washington Post – about Gingrich’s comments and quoted Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, saying, “The tone of his comments were very hateful.”

Several days later, Gingrich posted a video on YouTube, in which he addressed his comments, in Spanish (he explained in the video that he had been taking Spanish lessons “for a while now”). According to the English subtitles provided, Gingrich began:

Gingrich, April 4, 2007: Last weekend I made some comments that I recognize produced a bad feeling within the Latino community. The words I chose to express myself were not the best, and what I wanted to say is this. In the United States it is important to speak English well in order to progress and have success. To achieve this goal, we should replace bilingual education programs with intensive English instruction courses and in this way permit that English be the language that all of us have in common.

This is an expression of support for Latinos, not an attack on their language. I have never believed that Spanish is a language of people of low income nor a language without beauty.

Gingrich’s Dubious Freddie Mac Claim

Gingrich said the consulting contracts between the Gingrich Group and Freddie Mac expressly stated that he would do “no lobbying, none.” His campaign website makes the same claim. But that’s not quite true. The 1999 contract did contain such language, but the 2006 contract did not.

Gingrich, Jan. 26: The contracts we released from Freddie Mac said I would do no consulting, wrote in, no — I mean no lobbying, none.

Gingrich website, Nov. 9, 2011: Speaker Gingrich’s consulting firm, The Gingrich Group, was retained in 2006 by Freddie Mac. To be clear, Speaker Gingrich did no lobbying of any kind, nor did his firm. This was expressly written into the Gingrich Group contracts.

On Jan. 23, the Gingrich Group released a one-year consulting contract for 2006 with Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage entity. The contract paid the firm $25,000 a month in exchange for “consulting and related services by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public Policy,” Craig Thomas, who is a registered federal lobbyist.

There was no provision “written” into the 2006 contract that Gingrich would do “no lobbying,” as Gingrich said. Lobbying was mentioned only once in the contract: “Consultant will also supply copies of any disclosures or reports it may be required to file by law, such as reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.”

A day after releasing the contract, the Gingrich Group released a second contract: a 1999 agreement with Freddie Mac that also paid $25,000 a month, plus reimbursement of up to $1,000 per month for expenses. It was this contract — as Gingrich said — that had language clearly stating that Gingrich would do no lobbying for Freddie Mac. It said: “Neither The Gingrich Group nor Newt Gingrich will provide lobbying services of any kind nor participate in lobbying activities on Freddie Mac’s behalf.”

The 1999 contract “was entered into by the Gingrich Group on July 21, 1999 and was a renewable contract, which lasted through 2002,” according to the firm’s press release.

Bottom line: There were two contracts released, and only one contained the language cited by Gingrich and his website. So they are wrong to use the plural form “contracts” when saying that the agreements released to date included a no-lobbying clause.

Santorum: ‘Stolen’ Social Security Numbers?

We have a small quibble with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s choice of words in claiming that most illegal immigrants are working on Social Security numbers that are “probably stolen.”

Santorum: And people who have come to this country illegally have broken the law repeatedly. If you’re here, unless you’re here on a trust fund, you’ve been working illegally. You’ve probably stolen someone’s Social Security number, illegally.

His word choice — describing the numbers as “stolen” — wasn’t exactly on target. But his overall point is backed up by Pew Hispanic Center estimates that most illegal immigrants are working under “fraudulent” Social Security numbers, which could be stolen or just falsified.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that workers have traditionally used phony names and Social Security numbers to gain employment. But technology has made it increasingly difficult for counterfeit documents to pass muster, resulting in illegal immigrants increasingly acquiring the documents of real people. In 2009, the Supreme Court noted the difference between fake and stolen Social Security numbers, ruling that harsher federal sentences for identity theft cannot be handed down unless an illegal immigrant knowingly uses the number of a real person. Either way, the illegal immigrants are breaking the law, which was Santorum’s point.

– Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, D’Angelo Gore and Ben Finley

Read the story

Keeping both sides honest

Summary

The air wars in a pivotal Florida Republican primary race have so far been a decidedly one-sided affair, with Mitt Romney and a pro-Romney super PAC saturating the airwaves for weeks with a slew of attack ads aimed chiefly at Newt Gingrich.

Many of the attacks are accurate. But the avalanche of negativity also contains a few distortions, including some that are being recycled.

One claim that is repeated in several of the ads is that Gingrich supported funding for “China’s brutal one-child policy.” The truth is that the bill in question specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.”

Another claim is that Gingrich “supports amnesty for illegal immigrants.” He does advocate allowing some to gain legal status — but only those who have resided in the U.S. for years, are employed, and have ties to their communities. It’s not known how many could meet the tests Gingrich proposes.

One of the newest attacks makes fun of Gingrich for his constant mentions of Ronald Reagan, noting correctly that the former president mentioned Gingrich only once in his published diaries. But the ad slightly exaggerates when it claims Reagan said Gingrich’s “ideas” — plural — would “cripple our defense.” It was only one idea — to freeze all federal spending at 1983 levels. Plus, we found that Reagan in public speeches voiced support for Gingrich’s ideas on taxes and school prayer.

But accurate or not, the pounding has been going on for weeks on Florida television, with no response from Gingrich or his allies. Romney and Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC, spent $6.7 million on TV ads in Florida from Dec. 26 to Jan. 24, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of Kantar Media. Restore Our Future went on the air the day after Christmas and spent $3.3 million through Jan. 24. The Romney campaign followed on Jan. 4 and spent $3.4 million, the data show. Most of Romney’s ads are positive, but one recent addition is a pure attack on Gingrich.

Gingrich won’t be so defenseless in the final days before the Jan. 31 vote, however. The pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, entered the fray Jan. 25 with a promised $6 million ad campaign. We’ll check its ads in a later article.

Meanwhile, we offer in our Analysis section a sampling of the ads that have been hammering away at Gingrich, along with our comments on what’s accurate, what’s not and what additional context voters might find useful.

Analysis

The assault on Gingrich started early in Florida. The pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, went on TV the day after Christmas and hasn’t stopped since. Through Jan. 24, as we mentioned earlier, Romney and the super PAC supporting him outspent Gingrich $6.7 million to nothing, according to data supplied by the ad-tracking service CMAG.

It wasn’t until Jan. 25 that the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, started to run TV ads in Florida. But even if the group spends $6 million in Florida, as reported by the Washington Post, Romney and his allies will far outspend Gingrich.

Romney leaves most of the attacks on Gingrich to the super PAC supporting him. We have only one example of an anti-Gingrich ad that comes from Romney’s own campaign. That attack ad started running Jan. 24.

Note: For additional coverage of the Florida ad wars, see our Jan. 26 items, “Liberal Union Joins Attack on Romney in Florida” and “Gingrich Spanish Radio Ad Pulled.”

Misleading ‘Florida Families’

The Romney ad accuses Gingrich of contributing to the housing crisis (which has hit Florida particularly hard) and for ethics violations. We find it contains some exaggerations.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Romney for President TV Ad: “Florida Families”

Announcer: While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in. Gingrich was paid over $1.6 million by the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis.

Gingrich: And I offered my advice, and my advice as a historian …

Announcer: A historian? Really? Sanctioned for ethics violations, Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace. And then cashed in as a DC insider. If Newt wins, this guy [Obama] would be very happy.

The ad says Gingrich “cashed in” and “was paid over $1.6 million” from Freddie Mac, “while Florida families lost everything” in a housing crisis Freddie Mac “helped create.” It’s an exaggeration to link Gingrich’s consulting contract to the suffering of Floridians, and to say he personally was paid $1.6 million.

That $1.6 million figure — which is also repeated in many of the anti-Gingrich attack ads from Restore Our Future — refers to money paid to the former speaker’s consulting firm. As we have reported before, the firm had many employees and expenses.

Gingrich this week released a $25,000 per month contract with Freddie Mac, which states that the firm was hired to perform “consulting and related services as requested” by Freddie Mac’s director of public policy, a registered lobbyist for the government-sponsored mortgage entity. The $1.6 million figure — reported by Bloomberg — was not disputed when Romney cited it during the Florida GOP debate on Jan. 23. But Gingrich said, “My share annually was about $35,000 a year.” If that’s true, he personally received somewhere around $280,000 over an eight-year period.

It’s also debatable how much Freddie Mac and the other government-sponsored mortgage agency, Fannie Mae, “helped create” the housing bubble. As we said a few times in 2008, there is a lot of blame to go around — including but not limited to the Federal Reserve, investment banks, mortgage lenders, homeowners, regulators, and both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Plus, there’s no evidence that whatever Gingrich did for Freddie (and we still don’t know) had even a tenuous link to the suffering of Florida homeowners.

The ad also strains the facts when it links Gingrich’s decision to leave Congress to his ethics. It says, “Sanctioned for ethics violations, Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace.” But Gingrich announced his resignation nearly two years after the ethics case was resolved, prompted by a miserable election result. As we wrote twice earlier this month, Gingrich stepped down as House speaker in November 1998 after the Republicans suffered historic losses in the 1998 election. He then left Congress altogether in January 1999. The House voted to reprimand Gingrich in January 1997.

Amnesty, Ethics and Obama’s ‘Plan’

Restore Our Future, meanwhile, is spending more than $1 million each on two ads that are in heavy rotation in Florida. In one of them, “Smiling,” the pro-Romney super PAC focuses on electability — telling viewers that Obama would prefer to run against Gingrich. That may be so, but the ad misrepresents Gingrich’s immigration position, his ethics case and even a news article.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Smiling”

Announcer: Barack Obama’s plan is working. Destroy Mitt Romney. Run against Newt Gingrich. Newt has a ton of baggage. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations and took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac before it helped cause the economic meltdown. Newt supports amnesty for illegal immigrants, and teamed with Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore on global warming. Maybe that’s why George Will calls him the least conservative candidate. Check the facts at NewtFacts.com.

The ad starts off by saying, “Barack Obama’s plan is working. Destroy Mitt Romney. Run against Newt Gingrich.” To support that claim, the ad cites an Aug. 9, 2011, story by Politico that carries the headline: “Obama Plan: Destroy Romney.” But the story does not mention Gingrich at all, or any of the “baggage” that the ad claims will hurt the former speaker in a general election. Politico’s story was about the Obama campaign’s strategy for running against Romney in the general election, not about any plan to torpedo him in the primaries.

The ad also claims that Gingrich “supports amnesty for illegal immigrants.” That’s not true for most illegal immigrants; Gingrich supports something resembling amnesty for only a relatively small portion of those who are in the U.S. illegally.

As Gingrich has said in campaign appearances and debates, he believes that illegal immigrants who have lived a long time in the United States, are employed, and have ties to their community should not be deported. He would give them legal permission to remain, but not allow them to become citizens.

The ad contains the now familiar claim that Gingrich was “fined” $300,000 for ethics violations. As we have written, it was technically not a fine. The House ethics report on the case said the $300,000 was a reimbursement to defray some of the cost of the investigation.

Gingrich ‘Is No Ronald Reagan’

Another ad from Restore Our Future was released the morning of Jan. 25, and is titled “Reagan.” It says Gingrich exaggerates his connection to the former president, dropping his name 50 times in debates while Reagan mentioned Gingrich only once in his diaries, saying his “ideas” would “cripple our defense.”

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Reagan”

Narrator: From debates, you’d think Newt Gingrich was Ronald Reagan’s vice president.

Gingrich: I worked with President Ronald Reagan … worked with Ronald Reagan …. Ronald Reagan playbook … President Reagan … Reagan … Reagan … Reagan

Narrator: Gingrich exaggerates, dropping Ronald Reagan’s name 50 times. But in his diaries, Reagan mentioned Gingrich only once. Reagan criticized Gingrich, saying Newt’s ideas, quote, “would cripple our defense program.” Reagan rejected Newt’s ideas. On leadership and character, Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan.

This ad exaggerates only slightly. Gingrich indeed mentions Reagan’s name constantly and boasts of “helping” him create jobs and lower taxes, among other things. He mentioned Reagan seven times in the most recent debate on Jan. 23, for example, and a total of 10  more times in the two previous debates on Jan. 19 and Jan. 16. There have been 17 GOP debates so far.

And it’s true that Reagan mentioned Gingrich — at the time a junior House member from Georgia — only once in his published diaries. As we reported earlier when Romney brought this up during a debate, Reagan wrote that the young congressman’s 1983 suggestion to freeze spending “would cripple our defense program,” and he rejected it.

But this ad goes a bit too far when it says Reagan rejected “Newt’s ideas,” in the plural. Reagan mentioned rejecting only one — the spending freeze.

We also did a text search of Reagan’s public statements, speeches and papers on the Reagan presidential library website and found only seven mentions of Gingrich – most of them pro-forma at times when Reagan visited Georgia. That’s less than one mention a year during Reagan’s two terms. However, Reagan twice singled out Gingrich for praise on policy issues — specifically taxes and school prayer. In a March 2, 1984, speech to conservatives at the annual CPAC convention, Reagan noted that he was “gratified” that Gingrich was going to organize a rally on the Capitol steps in support of the prayer in school amendment.

Gingrich ‘Has Tons Of Baggage’

Yet another Restore Our Future ad, titled “Risk,” started running in Florida the afternoon of Jan. 24. It asks, “Can we risk four more years of Barack Obama,” and suggests that Gingrich would lose the general election because he “has tons of baggage.”

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Risk”

Narrator: Can we risk four more years of Barack Obama? Newt Gingrich’s tough talk sounds good, but Newt has tons of baggage. How will he ever beat Obama? While Newt was speaker, earmarks exploded. He co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy. And he teamed up with Pelosi on global warming. Beating Obama is important. Too important to risk on Newt Gingrich.

This spot repeats an unfair and misleading claim that Gingrich backed funding for a U.S. program “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” As we reported when Restore Our Future first used this claim against Gingrich in Iowa, it’s a distortion. The truth is that the bill specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.” The funding in question was a small part of a much larger bill, which died before ever coming up for a vote. For more details, see our Dec. 23 article, “Attacks Against Gingrich: How Accurate?”

The ad’s claim that appropriations earmarks “exploded” under Gingrich is accurate, however. The ad cites a Dec. 15 story by ABC News:

ABC News, Dec. 15: [We found] a startling spike under Gingrich’s leadership as speaker. Not only did earmark spending in Congress increase between 1994 and 1998, when he departed, the overall dollar amount roughly doubled.

And the ad is also true — as far as it goes — when it says Gingrich “teamed up with [Nancy] Pelosi on global warming.” Gingrich did indeed appear in a TV commercial with Pelosi back in 2008 and urged unspecified federal action to address climate change. But he later opposed Pelosi’s cap-and-trade bill. For full details on Gingrich’s shifting stance on climate change and cap-and-trade legislation, see our Dec. 15 item, “Gingrich On Climate Change.”

‘Desperate’ For Facts

A Restore Our Future ad called “Desperate” picks up on the same Gingrich-has-more-baggage-than-the-airlines theme that worked so well in Iowa in mid-December. And it  makes some of the same dubious claims that we checked then.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV ad: “Desperate”

Announcer: Newt Gingrich’s attacks are called foolish, out of bounds and disgusting. Newt attacks because he has more baggage than the airlines. Newt was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy. Don’t be fooled by Newt’s desperate attacks.

The ad repeats some of the claims of other ads we discussed above, including claims about being “fined” $300,000 for ethics violations and “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.”

On Admitting Mistakes

Another Restore Our Future 30-second ad landed some punches against Gingrich for admitting mistakes or flipping on issues.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Whoops”

Announcer: Ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes?

Gingrich: It was probably a mistake. … I made a mistake. … I’ve made mistakes at times. …

Announcer: So far, Newt Gingrich has admitted his mistakes or flipped on teaming up with Nancy Pelosi, immigration, Medicare, health care, Iraq, attacking Mitt Romney and more.

Gingrich: I made a big mistake in the spring.

Announcer: Haven’t we had enough mistakes?

“So far, Newt Gingrich has admitted his mistakes or flipped on teaming up with Nancy Pelosi, immigration, Medicare, health care, Iraq, attacking Mitt Romney and more,” the ad says while showing clips of Gingrich admitting mistakes.

We’ve previously reported that Gingrich made a partial flip on his illegal immigration stance; he said in 2005 he would require “all” illegal immigrants to return to their countries. And we’ve written that Gingrich regretted making an ad with Pelosi about climate change but ultimately opposed her cap-and-trade bill.

Regarding Medicare, Gingrich did indeed backtrack and apologize to Rep. Paul Ryan after criticizing the congressman’s plan to revamp the program. As for flipping on his attacks against Romney, Gingrich’s campaign recently said it would pull or edit a Spanish-language radio ad running in Florida that claims Romney is “anti-immigrant.”

Regarding health care, the former speaker flipped on “Romneycare,” according to a Wall Street Journal article. Gingrich has been denouncing the Massachusetts health care law on the campaign trail but voiced enthusiasm for the state legislation when it was passed six years ago.

As for flipping on Iraq, Gingrich wrote a USA Today column in 2002 urging an invasion of Iraq. Under the headline “Strike Sooner Than Later,” he wrote: “I believe [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld’s guidelines make an overwhelming case for replacing Saddam as soon as possible.” But after things went badly, Gingrich said in 2006: “It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003. …We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it.”

– by Robert Farley, Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson and Ben Finley

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