On Wednesday, for instance, Gingrich’s campaign had to explain a Bloomberg News report that he had received between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees for advising Freddie Mac, a federally backed housing giant that is despised by conservatives and that collapsed in the financial crisis.
Gingrich told reporters in Iowa on Wednesday that he doesn’t know how much money he was paid by Freddie Mac. His campaign sent out a statement saying that Freddie Mac was a small part of the Gingrich Group’s client base, and that the candidate had never lobbied on behalf of Freddie Mac or any other client.
The scrutiny he is getting comes with the territory, Gingrich acknowledged.
“I’ve been through long periods of tough media,” he said. “This is the presidency. There are no unreasonable questions.”
As he enjoys a political resurrection that few would have thought possible just weeks ago, Gingrich said he is well aware of how transient such a moment can be.
Consider what has happened just since August.
First there was Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), who enjoyed a brief surge that peaked when she won a GOP straw poll in Ames, Iowa. That momentum was squashed by Rick Perry’s entry into the race — until the Texas governor turned out to be a dud on the debate stage. And then came the fleeting star turn of onetime Godfather’s Pizza chief executive Herman Cain, whose candidacy has faded somewhat amid sexual harassment allegations and his increasingly apparent lack of depth on the issues.
Meanwhile, Romney has remained the presumed man to beat, although his failure to open a healthy lead in the polls suggests that the former Massachusetts governor is still a long way from winning the hearts of his fellow Republicans. That means a large part of the GOP electorate is still up for grabs.
Gingrich has said that his wife and his family have been coaching him to remain calm and upbeat, and to avoid doing anything that might rekindle memories of the man who in 1995 suggested that he had shut down the government because President Bill Clinton had made him sit in the back of Air Force One.
Seventeen years later, Gingrich has learned that there are a lot worse things in politics than coming under fire.
Like not getting any attention at all.
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