And then there’s the matter of actual content.
Want to debate health care? See Romney above. Foreign policy? Tell us why you began advocating the invasion of Iraq within days of Sept. 11, Mr. Speaker, leading us into a trillion-dollar mistake. Explain why you advocated military action against Moammar Gadhafi right up to moment that such action began, at which point you turned against it, predicting it would be a disaster.
Global warming? Please explain the mental gymnastics needed to transition from a strong advocate of a cap-and-trade approach, even appearing in a commercial with Nancy Pelosi, to your current position of denying the problem even exists. The economy? Explain how you took some $1.6 million from Freddie Mac “as a historian,” never uttering a word in public or apparently in private about the problems that you now claim to have foreseen. Explain how you predicted that Clinton’s 1993 tax hikes would lead to economic disaster, but instead were followed by the longest expansion in post-war history.
Whatever the topic, Obama would have an easy rebuttal, and in many cases the rebuttal could be supplied by Newt himself.
The truth is, Gingrich likes to talk in sweeping generalizations and stirring absolutes, which helps him come across like the big lofty thinker he claims to be. Everything is “fundamentally” this or “profoundly” that, not to mention “dramatic” and “transformative.” It’s an effective style in speeches and public appearances, because bombastic claims, assumptions and leaps of logic can’t be challenged.
But in a debate format against a worthy opponent, unable to hide in the clouds and forced to deal with specifics and his own record, Gingrich would fold.
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