We now have that third piece of the puzzle to determine who will represent the Republican Party in November. Depending on whom you support, the outcome in South Carolina is “a major win,” “what we hoped for” or “the final straw” in one candidate’s charge to the front. Now, we can talk about Florida and surely one of the top three will win there. Ron Paul, who came in fourth, has focused his campaign more on a “message to America” than the Republican nomination for the presidency and is not likely to come in number one in Florida.
We also might look at Gingrich’s success in South Carolina in light of his response to the CNN debate’s moderator question about Gingrich’s exwife’s statement. He made a bold response it mirrored many American’s views of how the TV media tries to dramatize events for maximum viewer ratings.
It certainly established him (Gingrich) as one capable of taking on any moderators and very capable of debating the incumbent president.
Depending on one’s political alliance, the final candidate should be the weakest candidate - the Democratic view, or the individual best equipped to wrestle the White House from the Democratic Party - the Republican view.
One point that interested me was their personal net worth. This is not the same as how they earn their money (salary, investments, speaking fees, etc.), or how much they pay in taxes. I was interested in how much they had in assets, their actual net worth. Being a millionaire is one thing.
Being a multi-millionaire, with over $100,000,000 means they have a whole lot of wealthy friends with a vested interest in who is the Republican nominee.
With that in mind, I wenton the Internet to find out how wealthy the candidates really are. They submit financial disclosure statements which list everything in a range. The sites I used include Forbes, 247wallst.
com, abcnews.go.com and Finance.yahoo.com. All the listed numbers are estimates.
What I obtained included information on our current president and the six most recent Republican candidates, now down to only four with the exodus of Jon Huntsman ($16 million to $72 million) and Rick Perry (at least $1.1 million to $2.5 million on one site). Mitt Romney had the highest net worth as well as the widest range of variation of any candidate. The low range went from $85 million to $190 million with a high end value estimate of $264 million. Newt Gingrich’s net worth varied greatly based on which source included a value of $5 million to $25 million promissory note. (Los Angeles Times report.) One source set a low value of $2 million while two sources listed “atleast $6.7 million.” (The Los Angeles Times) Ron Paul’s assets seemed to be the easiest to agree on with a low end range of $1.9 million to $2.4 million and everyone agreeing the high range was between $5 million and $5.4 million. Rick Santorum had the lowest net worth of the candidates with one estimate of $880,000 for its minimum. The top estimate for his personal wealth was $3 million.
It is obvious from these numbers that regardless of how one invests their resources - stocks, real estate, gold and silver bullion, or race horses - it is not an exact science in trying to assign a value to their assets.
Main stream middle America has a long way to go before we actually pick our presidential candidates regardless of our political party choice.
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Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County, is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Opinion, Pages 4 on 01/25/2012