Posted on 03/05/2012 2:36:45 PM PST by Fred
Newt Gingrich will challenge his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination to a debate next week, the former House speaker said Monday.
Gingrich said he expects to extend the invitation Tuesday for a forum in Mississippi or Alabama, where voters head to the polls on March 13.
"I think we owe it to the people of Mississippi and Alabama to have a debate," Gingrich said on Fox News. "I think that frankly it's to everybody's advantage to have a debate."
He also used the impending invitation to single out Romney, the current Republican frontrunner.
"I don't think Romney can just hide behind millions of dollars of paid ads," Gingrich said. "He's got to come out in the open."
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
If Newt was half as good at schlong control as he was at debating, he’d already be the nominee.
It sounds like you are describing Newt here. He is the one not showing up in the polls anymore. All you guys have to stand on is Newts "Brilliant" debating. Guess what? When he was in that debate with no audience participation he bombed. The same types of debates that are always used in General Election debates. Going through the last minute polling, it is Milt and Rick going head to head. All Newt has is his own state. Big deal.
yes
The debates drew huge audiences.
Is the fear of debate a Santorum thing?
Excellent. :)
Romney 25.5%
SANTORUM 25.3% out of 500 likely voters, well within the margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Paul 13.5%
Gingrich 11%
- washingtontimes.com
Since when did conservatives want to end debates instead of seeing more of them.
Rush Limbaugh killed Gingrich just before Florida with the stupid meme that Gingrich was “anti-capitalist” because Gingrich actually asked Romney to be honest about the nature of his business (which was not automobile manufacturing, like his daddy’s business, but a rather dubious and publicly unpopular area of finance).
I think Gingrich was genuinely stunned by having the theoretical spokesperson of the right turn against him and support Romney, and even though Rush said a few days later that maybe he had overstated this, the damage was done. Also, Romney and Santorum had already carpeted Florida with their signs and most elderly people, who are a big bloc here, had already early-voted for Romney or Santorum because they wanted to vote for the person that they were told was going to be the winner.
Finally, the “moderators” asked Gingrich virtually no questions, and when they finally asked him one, Romney attacked and Gingrich told Romney that he wanted to discuss the issues and not attack other candidates. Then Romney launched into a completely bizarre off-the-wall attack on him that was not stopped by the moderators because they were obviously on the Romney side.
I repeat: neither Lil Ricky nor Mitty has any ideas. They are both big-government statists. Look at their track records.
The only way this would work is if Gingrich proposed a “round table” discussion moderated by an uncommitted conservative media personality like Rush Limbaugh.
To make things more interesting, give the candidates the questions ahead of time, and limit the discussion to a back and forth between the moderator and each candidate one at a time, with the limitation that questions and answers be limited to just the topic at hand.
No digressions, no contrasts with the other candidates, just “What will I do as president?”
I would propose some real hardball questions.
1) What parts of the federal government should be strongly reduced or eliminated?
2) What will you do to create energy independence for America?
3) With the cooperation of congress, what steps will you take to reduce the power of the “imperial presidency”?
4) What is your program to stop economic collapse?
5) What should be done about illegal aliens, both keeping them out of the US, and with those already here?
I wish they held a round table discussion with equal time given to all. Maybe with a short winded moderator. Or questions written and put in a bowl in the middle of the table and drawn out by a moderator. Each candidate has opportunity to answer the question.
Almost as ugly as Bambi and his family...please, get those slope-shouldered, intimidated looking boys out of their sweater vests, and get the girls into something that makes them look like female human beings.
This guy has no chance of winning anywhere outside of the tiny percentage of folks who are turning out for the GOP primaries. Wherever there is a large turnout, Gingrich wins.
Turkey shoots is an accurate description, if turkeys had a brain, they would not participate, since they are the target, and they are no good alive.
WOW!
500 people from the Washington times.......
Now there is cutting edge data for you.....yawn.....
“Hannity volunteered to moderate.”
That would be worse than the MSM. Instead of learning anything about the candidates, we would hear 2 hours of hannity interrupting, then pontificating.
No, but they are sure good with a fresh bottle of Chianti and some Fave Beans! FFFTTttttt.....ttttt.....ttttt....ttt!
I’m sure Huck would welcome a weekly round table format like the one two days ago with Rick, Newt, & Willard. But tweak it little as you mentioned.
Exactly, huge audiences, and all of those millions are the people who decide the republican primary, and with each change in the state of the primary, new eyes, new conservative primary voters were drawn into watch.
We conservatives cannot afford to cut off our chance to see our choices hash it out in debates, we need more, not less.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.