Gingrich steps on Ron Paul's turf with push for Federal Reserve audit

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is looking to stake out some of Rep. Ron Paul's (R-Texas) political turf with his push this week for an audit of the Federal Reserve.

Gingrich, a rival of Paul's for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has co-opted the Federal Reserve audit Paul had fought for during last year's Wall Street reform battle, and made it a centerpiece of his campaign.

"I believe that if you believe in American exceptionalism, our rights come from our creator, that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution matter, that the Federal Reserve is clearly acting in ways that violate equality, violate the rule of law and violate the sense of fairness," Gingrich said in a new Web video on Wednesday.

Gingrich has been talking up the need to repeal Dodd-Frank, last year's financial regulatory reform bill, along with Sarbanes-Oxley, the 2002 law strengthening standards for public accounting firms and corporate management. Along with an audit of the Federal Reserve, the former Speaker has made those three prongs a centerpiece of his economic strategy.

"This economy is going to stay mired in a bad economy until we bring the Fed under control and we repeal the Dodd-Frank bill," he said in his video.

Of course, the Fed audit impinges in particular on the turf staked out by Paul, who vocally proposed such an audit during the battle over Dodd-Frank. And Paul, in his long-shot presidential campaign, has gone a step further, evidenced by his book, End the Fed. Paul, a libertarian-minded Republican, has called for allowing gold and silver currency to compete with the U.S. dollar.

Only time will tell whether Gingrich will be able to pick off Paul supporters with his assault on the Federal Reserve. The former Speaker's campaign has been perceived as struggling following a series of missteps and key resignations that threaten to cripple his organization.

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