Newt 2012 compares their plan to reform the Federal Reserve to Romney's non plan

Which is to say Newt 2012 has a plan to reform the Fed, while Romney leaves it untouched.

Newt2012HQ tweeted:

While Romney Ignores the Fed, Gingrich Offers Bold Reforms

The tweet linked to Newt org, where they compare the differences between Newt and Romney on the Fed, exports, and trade.

Read the whole post, but here's an excerpt:

Additionally, Gingrich will demand a full audit and more transparency at the Fed, to ensure that the Fed can never again repeat the mistakes of 2008 and make thousands of secret loans to banks and other large institutions for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Mitt Romney’s 160-page plan for the economy only proposes tentative tax reform, and does not make a single mention of what he would do to improve transparency and responsibility at the Fed – if he would do anything at all.

Text of Newt's address on Dodd-Frank and the Federal Reserve

Here is the full address. (Consider signing the petition Newt is starting to audit the Fed as well.)

I will post video and/or audio as it becomes available.

Sign Newt's petition to audit the Fed

Here is the petition.

From Newt.org:

We insist that the body become more honest and transparent with the American public that it serves.

The Fed must no longer be allowed to stonewall and mislead American taxpayers who have the right to know, "Who Got the Money?"

One of the keys of getting a strong dollar back -- not one that loses nearly a quarter of value in a decade -- is stopping the Fed from its inflationary practices.

A sneak peek at Newt's speech on the Federal Reserve

From The Wall Street Journal:

In the latest salvo, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is expected to call Wednesday in Atlanta for a "dramatically limited Federal Reserve." In the text of his comments released in advance, he criticizes the U.S. central bank for not staying focused on the strength of the dollar and for lending money to subsidiaries of foreign banks during the financial crisis.

...

In the text of his comments, Mr. Gingrich accuses the Fed of supporting Libya during the financial crisis. A New York subsidiary of Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp. was among many foreign banks the Fed lent to during the crisis to prevent a global financial meltdown. The Libyan government has a large stake in the bank, though Fed officials have said most of the stake was purchased by Tripoli after the bank's loans from the Fed were repaid. A Fed spokeswoman declined to comment.

(Update: Newt has already posted a short video that mainly deals with the Fed):

Was the D.C. establishment -- gasp -- wrong about Newt's campaign?

Just a week or so ago, the common wisdom among journalists inside Washington D.C. was that Newt's campaign -- due to the comments about Paul Ryan and the surrounding dust up -- was on life support. Some even suggested he would drop out before July.

Then, the reports of overflow crowds at each and every of his Iowa appearances began to trickle in. As Newt has noted, the only national reporter to actually show up was NPR's Mara Liasson, who said the crowds and enthusiasm was nothing like she was hearing back in D.C. Chuck Todd, NBC's White House Correspondent, tweeted: "As folks prepare Sunday columns writing off Gingrich, riddle this: he's attracting large crowds; Conservative elite-Iowa grassroots split?"

Then, Newt has been in New Hampshire the past two days, talking to about 600 people total, says The Washington Post.

photo: R.C. Hammond











While the actual voters showed no interest in Newt's jewelry purchases, Nia-Malika Henderson passes along the following exchange with a fellow reporter and Newt:

Will your charge account at Tiffany sink your campaign, a Reuters reporter asked.

“I want you all to notice, finally, the citizens having failed to raise the most important question of the day. I was asked about a charge account at Tiffany’s,” he said, standing before a crowd of about 200 people, who didn’t boo but laughed at his sarcasm. “Now, I’m grateful that somebody here finally had the courage to go to one of the hot-button issues that will change America’s future.”

Henderson quotes Newt: “I’ve got to be more careful and make certain that it’s virtually impossible to misunderstand what I’m saying. I’ve got to be less academic and more explicit,” he said at the Conway Diner. “And we’ve got to get faster at responding to stories that are just totally false. We are still a half-step behind doing that. We eventually burn them out, but it takes longer than it should.”

Henderson included an interesting tidbit that I have not seen reported yet: "Over the next week, Gingrich will work on two major speeches to be delivered in June, one on foreign policy and another on the Federal Reserve."

So Newt had a great response in Iowa and New Hampshire (and he will be in South Carolina Friday, where he will discuss the federal power reach in the Boeing case.) National polls (here and here) show Newt still in good position.

With all that, it looks like the D.C. media was wrong about trying to stick a fork in Newt's campaign. Not that surprising when you consider just a few things the media has been wrong about;

It was also wrong about Ronald Reagan being unelectable. And wrong about Reagan's economic policies. (As Reagan himself said: "I could tell our economic policy was working when [the media] stopped calling it Reaganomics.") And Reagan's foreign policy.

The media laughed at Newt when he said the Republicans would gain a majority in the House. They said he would never become Speaker. Then they doubted Newt and the House Republicans would fulfill the Contract with America. Then the media doubted that welfare reform could be passed. And when it was passed, they predicted terrible things for those leaving welfare, not two of every three either going to work or school. The media said it was impossible to balance the budget.

So does it surprise anyone that they were wrong about this?