Why Gingrich would lose in a debate with Obama

[alp227]

About the author: John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a co-author of “American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship.”

Newt Gingrich is basing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, in large part, on one main premise: He is the candidate best equipped to debate President Obama.

If he becomes the nominee, Gingrich asserts, he will challenge the president to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates, three hours apiece. He says the president’s ego would compel him to accept, but if he doesn’t, Gingrich promises, “I’m going to say, ‘The White House is now my scheduler,’ and wherever he goes, I will show up within four hours to take apart whatever he said — that’s how Lincoln got Douglas to debate.”

Supporters of the former House speaker love to imagine these debates. After all, the debates among the Republican candidates have helped Gingrich enormously in the GOP contest. In South Carolina, he brought cheering audiences to their feet in back-to-back debates before trouncing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by 12 percentage points in the state’s Jan. 21 primary — and nearly two-thirds of Palmetto State voters said the debates affected their decision. Gingrich’s legions picture their guy landing blow after blow against Obama, leaving the president dazed and hopeless.

It’s easy to dismiss Gingrich’s challenge as a gimmick, just some red meat to excite GOP primary voters, and not a challenge Obama would ever accept. But what if he did? What if the president and the former House speaker dueled in a series of open, nationally televised debates? An honest look at Gingrich’s record suggests that the results could differ markedly from the fantasies of Team Newt. Obama would not collapse in a heap, Gingrich would not emerge triumphant — and the whole thing would go down as the biggest campaign blunder since Richard Nixon figured he could out-debate John F. Kennedy on television.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-gingrich-would-lose-in-a-debate-with-obama/2012/01/26/gIQATm8eVQ_singlePage.html

[BlueJazz]

1. Gingrich has been playing with "Little Boys". He gets into a debate with an...

...educated man and he'll explode like a cheap baloon.

[Old and In the Way]

2. The debates will not go as well for Newt as he thinks.

His outrageous and libelous assertions won't be cheered by Democrats and Independents. President Obama would pretty much neutralize Newt's airs of intellectual superiority with a combination of well placed humor and sharp barbs that would deflate the human gas bag. At the end, Obama will look Presidential and Newt will look like an pretentious asshole.

[jimlup]

3. Still further Gingrich is prone to becoming "upset"

Obama would play that as the expert that he is - never losing his cool. Just slowly chipping away while Gingrich would fairly quickly inflate into a gas bag of self righteous anger. It would be a big loss for Gingrich.

The "professor" would be put in his rightful place.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Audience 'participation' isn't allowed in the Presidential debates.

That right there will take the wind out of Newt's sails. His lines will fall flat, one after another without the troglodytes lauding him on.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Bingo...

Without a partisan crowd to play off of, Gingrich is a one-note asshole.