Heard on the Hill: Ron Paul Fudges Roll Call Figures
Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul of Texas picked a Roll Call story chronicling fellow hopeful and former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s meteoric rise to multimillionaire to beat his former House colleague over the head with a new ad.
The only problem is that Paul’s attack ad wrongly accuses Gingrich of raking in the lion’s share of his much-maligned dough more than a decade before the former Speaker cashed in all those politically motivated checks.
Calls and emails for comment to the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign were not returned.
Paul fired the salvo over the weekend, releasing “Selling Access” on various campaign websites. Beginning at the 15-second mark, the futuristic-looking ad features a disembodied voice rehashing the accumulation of Gingrich’s riches, as originally reported Dec. 2 by Roll Call.
But the ad eventually detours into fantasyland, asserting that “by the time he [Gingrich] left Congress, he’s brought his net worth to about $7-and-a-half million.”
According to Roll Call’s story, Gingrich listed about $606,000 in assets in his last financial disclosure before resigning from Congress in 1998.
Roll Call reported Gingrich is currently worth more than $7.3 million, having accumulated millions after leaving Congress.
All of which leads us to believe that if Paul’s ad somehow manages to hurt Gingrich’s feelings, the big guy will just have to settle for wiping away any tears with soft, absorbent $100 bills.