Newt Gingrich and Citizens United: It's All About the Money

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

You have to go back to 2010 and the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which officially bestowed corporate personhood on campaign financing. The case was to determine whether or not a third party organization or corporation could pay for media (including advertising) that might affect a political campaign. The media in question in Citizens United was a movie that attacked Hillary Clinton.

Citizens United won the case on a re-hearing and opened the floodgates for corporations and organizations to basically support or oppose candidates without financial restriction through the use of political broadcasts, for example.

Newt Gingrich and his third wife, Callista, own Gingrich Productions. Gingrich Productions has worked closely with Citizens United on a wide variety of films, including "Rediscovering God in America," "Rediscovering God in America II," "Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny," "We Have the Power," and "Nine Days That Changed The World." The work of Gingrich Productions, which is a for-profit corporation, is integrated into the work of Citizens United - and into the pockets of the Gingriches.

Interestingly, as a product of Gingrich Productions, Callista - not to be outdone by her prolific, conservative, revisionist-historian author-husband - recently wrote a children's book promoting American exceptionalism, "Sweet Land of Liberty," starring Ellis the Elephant: "Traveling through time, Ellis partakes in the pivotal moments that have shaped our nation's unique history and character. Authored by Callista Gingrich and illustrated by Susan Arciero, Sweet Land of Liberty will delight young and old alike through the charming adventures of Ellis the Elephant and the story of why America is an exceptional nation."

Gingrich is actually a branding, moneymaking machine, with revenue sources that pay for luxury expenses such as his reportedly $500,000 credit line at Tiffany's. His politics and his merchandising of himself for multimillion-dollar profits are inextricably intertwined. Just the other day, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that Gingrich's campaign was paying a Gingrich company to rent mailing lists. In essence, that is just one small alleged example of how the Newtster may be personally making money off of running for president.

Gingrich "enterprises" extend far and wide beyond Gingrich Productions, including examples such as his infamous Freddie Mac "consulting fee." According to ABC News, "the former speaker of the House claims he never lobbied, but was merely a 'consultant' for the company, which paid him $1.6 million in nine years."

What is at issue here in Gingrich's relationship to Citizens United, his companies, his consulting fees, etcetera, is that his work to keep himself in the public eye is inextricably tied to the marketing of Newt Gingrich as a product. Perhaps he is sincerely running for president, but he is also enhancing his brand.

Gingrich doesn't appear to be making a dash for the dollars with his provocative pronouncements, but he is.

In some ways, he is the actual physical embodiment of corporate personhood, because you don't know where Gingrich the entrepreneur begins and Gingrich the candidate ends. But we will probably find out the latter soon enough.