Before. This was written before SC's primary. There are hundreds of articles out there mentioning Adelson and Gingrich long before South Carolina. This is dated January 10th. The South Carolina Primary was January 21st.
FTA: Sheldon Adelson, the son of a Boston cabdriver, made his millions as a casino mogul in Las Vegas and Macao, and $5 million of that wealth will help pay for ads and an online video that seek to halt Mitt Romney’s rise in South Carolina, where the contest moves after today’s New Hampshire primary."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/01/10/casino-mogul-fuels-gingrich-offensive/X4jEYUxngjIXm2waQGuHQP/story.html
Looks as if he just wants to back a winner - with strings attached.
I'd say he wants to back a winner, period. This isn't Adelson's first rodeo and this is not the first time he's supported someone running for president (McCain & Bush, at minimum).
I attended the caucus in Colorado this week. Newt made a grand total of one stop in the whole state, and it was in the the more liberal part. Romney, Santorum and Paul spent their time down here in the part of the state where conservatives live and vote.
We never got a call, saw an ad, saw a piece of mail - nothing from Newt. We were bombarded by Romney's stuff (yuck), and had several nice contacts with Santorum's people. Paul's people are all over the place on weekends. At the caucus, it was all about Santorum. People were not supporting Newt since he didn't bother to show up or make it known that he was running in our part of the state.
I wouldn't know Adelson from a smoldering hole in the ground. But I know better than to throw good money after bad if my candidate decided not to run in some states.
This was a deliberate strategy by Speaker Gingrich to not split the conservataive vote in these three caucus states and thus allow Santorum the three states, in order to blunt the effect of the Romney Florida plurality “win”.
This again stopped Romney from gaining any momentum, just like the Gingrich South Carolina primary win that actually gained Gingrich a passel of delagates. It also allowed the Gingrich campaign to spend precious time campaigning in delegate rich primary states.
The strategy worked perfectly.
The strategy worked perfectly