Political gifts

EVAN SMITH: So Governor Romney said yesterday now somewhat famously, that “the reason that the president won is because he gave gifts to minorities in the form of healthcare or to young people in the form of preferable college loan…”

NEWT GINGRICH: I am very disappointed…

EVAN SMITH: With Governor Romney saying that?

NEWT GINGRICH: With Governor Romney’s analysis, which I believe is insulting and profoundly wrong.

EVAN SMITH: Can you talk about that? Why is that?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well first of all, we didn’t lose Asian-Americans, because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos.

EVAN SMITH: Right, seventy-three percent of Asian-Americans, seventy-one percent of Latinos.

NEWT GINGRICH: This is the hardest working and most successful ethnic group in America, okay. They ain’t into gifts. Second, it’s an insult to all Americans. It reduces us to economic entities who have no passion, no idealism, no dreams, no philosophy, and if it had been that simple, my question would have been “Why didn’t you out bid him?”

EVAN SMITH: Right, “You had the money…” you could be in the gift giving business if you had elected to be.

NEWT GINGRICH: He had enough billionaire supporters that if buying the electorate was the key, he could have got all of his super PAC friends together and said, “Don’t buy ads, give gifts.” It’d be like the northwest Indians who have gift giving ceremonies. He could have gone town by town and said, “Come here and let me give you gifts. Here are Republican gifts.” They could have an elephant coming in with gifts on it.

"Remember, this is the best food stamp president in history. So more Americans today get food stamps than before. And we now give it away as cash -- you don't get food stamps. You get a credit card, and the credit card can be used for anything. We have people who take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii. They give food stamps now to millionaires because, after all, don't you want to be compassionate? You know, the Obama model: isn't there somebody you'd like to give money to this week. That's why we're now going to help bailout Italy because we haven't bailed out enough people this week, the president thought let's write another check. After all, we have so much extra money."

The Koch-backed activist group Americans for Prosperity is buying and pumping gas for drivers pulling up to stations today in Nevada, Iowa, and Michigan. The group (which has spent $31 million on anti-Obama smear ads since April) is spending $4,000 at every station to provide 100-150 drivers gas for the low price $1.84 per gallon. That dollar amount per gallon, according to AFP, reflects the price of gas during Bush’s administration, before Obama “doubled it” in 2009 when he took office.

(Of course, AFP is totally wrong. Gas prices were at their highest ($4+ gallon) May – August 2008, during Bush’s final year as President. In the head of the recession, that price ($4) proved to be unsustainable, and in keeping with the global demand for oil, it was temporarily and drastically lowered to $1.71 in December. Six days before Obama was inaugurated, the price had increased by about $0.20, before settling at $1.84. After that gas prices continued to climb, not because of Obama’s policy but because Bush’s reduced price was only a temporary and artificial adjustment.)