It looks like it's officially Opposition Research Week on Newt Gingrich. The Washington Post has a front page, full website splash story about how Newt Gingrich's think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, received millions of dollars from the health care and pharmaceutical drug industry in exchange for access to Gingrich.
The think tank pushed industry goals, some of which became part of President Obama's health reform law:
The health center advocated, among other things, requiring that “anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year must purchase health insurance or post a bond,” a type of insurance mandate that has since become anathema to conservatives.This is actually an important reminder that not only is the individual mandate an idea that's loved by health insurers, it's something that has traditionally been an idea conservative Republicans like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich advocated.
The group also pushed proposals to build centralized electronic medical records and use such data to research treatment effectiveness, both central features of President Obama’s health-care reforms.
For those not in the know, every political campaign of any size has a research department which is responsible for digging up dirt on their opponents and packaging the research in easily digestible formats that can be given to reporters to write stories which damage the opponents. A research department for a major campaign will develop research books on all of their legitimate opponents, but strategically deploy opposition research when they can do the most damage. Since Gingrich has recently moved to the top of the polls, you're now seeing campaigns dump their oppo research on Gingrich. Hence this week's hits on his nearly decade-long work for Freddie Mac and large profits advocating for components of ObamaCare.
When the stories about Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment cases came out, he fell in the polls. Whoever is pushing this research on Gingrich is hoping the same thing happens to him.