Could Gingrich Beat Obama in Debates?

If nothing else, Newt Gingrich has one of the most visibly overinflated egos of any of the occupants of the GOP presidential candidate clown car. And because his ego often out leads rational thought, some speculate that in Obama-Gingrich debates, Gingrich would prove to be the loser. Especially if the audience wasn't limited to delusional Christianists and Tea party followers whose cheering seems to encourage Gingrich's demagoguery. A op-ed in the Washington Post looks at a face off between Obama and Gingrich and predicts that contrary to Gingrich's dreams, he'd end up the loser. Here are highlights:

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

Supporters of the former House speaker love to imagine these debates. . . . . Gingrich’s legions picture their guy landing blow after blow against Obama, leaving the president dazed and hopeless.

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.

But as a student of military history, Gingrich should know better than to underestimate an opponent in this way. The president taught law at the University of Chicago and has as much experience lecturing as Gingrich. He has shown in White House events and town hall meetings that he is perfectly capable of talking in depth and in detail about complex policy issues.

In debates with Gingrich, Obama might botch a name here or a fact there. . . . Gingrich is prone to a more serious kind of mistake. His problem is not that he errs on the fine points but that he makes radioactive comments that alienate voters outside the Republican core. In a debate in October, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked whether voters should pay attention to a candidate’s religion. “How can you have judgment if you have no faith?” Gingrich answered. “And how can I trust you with power if you don’t pray?”

The more time he [Gingrich] gets to talk, the more likely he is to say something outrageous. Throughout his career, his speeches and extended interviews have been spawning grounds for odd or even grotesque Gingrichisms.

When he’s under criticism, Gingrich’s standard operating procedure is to interject that people are taking his words out of context. In a Lincoln-Douglas format, he would just have to sit and seethe until his turn came. As we’ve witnessed several times during the current debates, Gingrich is very good when he’s pretending to be angry; he’s very bad when he is angry for real. . . . Knowing this history, Obama would try to play with his head.

[A]s conservative commentator John Ziegler has pointed out, the audiences for those debates would include independents and Democrats as well as Republicans. Any incendiary remarks by Gingrich would get more catcalls than cheers.

In the end, what most people would see of such debates would be brief clips on news programs. And those clips would naturally consist of the most dramatic and attention-getting material — including the moments when Gingrich drew jeers from the audience for making over-the-top attacks. And so he would be back to where he’s been many times, complaining of selective quotation by liberals and the media.

So just picture Obama giving Gingrich everything he wants: seven three-hour debates with demonstrative audiences. Gingrich would then be able to make knockout punches — against himself.

David Frum - Questions The GOP Candidates Need to Be Asked

With much of the discussion transpiring during the so-called debates between the would be GOP presidential nominees amounting to often little more than a regurgitation of stale GOP talking points and pandering to the Christianist/Tea Party base of the party, other than learning that some of the nominees are ignoramuses (something not exactly unknown to rational people before hand), we've learned little in terms of what would be proposed by the candidates to deal with real issues facing America. S-called "family Values" and demonizing LGBT citizens does nothing to address these very real problems that involve issues from energy independence to the drug flow from south of our borders. David Frum, one of the increasingly rare rational conservatives has a list of questions he believes should be asked. I'm not holding my breath that substantive questions will be asked, much less that substantive answers will be forthcoming. None the less, here's the list:

CBS and National Journal asked me among others to suggest some questions to ask the candidates at tomorrow’s foreign policy debate. My suggested list follows. Note that it was written in advance of the Keystone XL pipeline decision, which adds urgency to the energy security questions.


1. Mexico is being torn apart by a civil war to control the drug routes to the United States. Many Mexican leaders urge drug legalization in the US in order to move the drug trade away from violent criminals to legitimate business. If a Mexican president asked you to consider such a step, what would you answer and why?

2. Canada is our largest trading partner and most important energy supplier. What do you see as the major issues between the US and Canada and what would you do to strengthen this supremely important relationship?

3. If asked, would you support a US contribution to the fund to stabilize the Euro currency? Why or why not?

4. Taiwan is China’s largest foreign investor. Taiwan and China have an intensifying economic relationship. Taiwan has refused to make the military investments that our military considers necessary to Taiwan’s security. Is the US security guarantee to Taiwan obsolete?

5. If you had been president in 2010, would Hosni Mubarak still be in power today?

6. Do you believe there is a peaceful way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?

7. It’s often said that our present energy policy leaves us dependent on oil suppliers who do not like us. Our top 10 suppliers are:

Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia, Algeria, Iraq, Angola and Colombia. The anti-US feeling of the Chavez regime is notorious. Which of the other 9 would you describe as a supplier who “does not like us”?

8. Afghanistan: At the end of your first term do you think we’ll have more or less than 20,000 troops in that country?

9. Iraq: Knowing everything you know now, if you had been in Congress in 2002, would you have voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, yes or no?

Mitt Romney Continues To Build A Case for Inevitability

In the wake of the The Post-Bloomberg debate last night, Mitt Romney continued to shine while Rick Perry and Herman Cain continued to show their unfitness for the office of president - not that being unfit for office seems to hold much sway with the Kool-Aid drinkers of the GOP base. Obviously, I'd prefer to see a sane GOP nominee as opposed to a nutcase and/or homophobe like Cain or Bachmann or someone utterly in bed with the Christian Right such as Perry. Of course, if a non-crazy wins the GOP nomination, Barack Obama's re-election effort will be far more difficult since it will be harder to use his opponent as the bogey man to frighten voters into supporting him. Both the Washington Post and Politico review the debate and come to the same conclusion that Romney was the clear winner. First these highlights from Politico.

Hours after Chris Christie signaled he believes Mitt Romney is the Republican party’s inevitable nominee, Romney and the rest of the GOP field went about proving him right.

Romney again outclassed the opposition in Tuesday’s Bloomberg/Washington Post debate. Again, none of the other GOP contenders laid a glove on him. And in a telling move that seemed to acknowledge the limits of Rick Perry’s candidacy, the Texas governor effectively tried to survive the debate by not losing it.

[T]he former Massachusetts governor ended it [the day] by standing above an increasingly muddled group of rivals. Aided by a group of competitors who’ve risen and fallen — or not run altogether — the former Massachusetts governor’s steady-as-he-goes strategy has returned him to unqualified frontrunner status.

After suffering through consecutive brutal debates, Perry and his team clearly made a decision to use this forum as a pivot point, rather than an opportunity, in which he would talk up his coming economic roll-out and not seek to tear into Romney or otherwise repair the damage from his past performances.

The Texas governor was absent from much of evening’s back-and-forth, rarely interjecting as some of his competitors did freely.

Instead of attempting a debate knock-out, Perry is now aiming to reverse his steep slide in the polls with a series of policy speeches. . . . . But a slew of new polls over the last two days and the debate here suggest Perry’s not going to receive the sort of attention for his proposals he may have a month ago. That was before Cain’s surge and the buzz around his catchy economic plan began taking hold.

Cain got off more than a few additional plugs for his economic plan, but then showed why his rise in the polls has been greeted by Romney’s campaign with something approaching open arms. Asked about the most serious foreign policy challenge facing the nation, Cain repeated the question and then offered the vaguest of platitudes.

The Washington Post is even more upbeat on its analysis of Romney's performance and the lackluster showings of his main rivals. Here are some highlights:

Certainly, Mitt Romney has to be very pleased. He was smooth as silk, deflecting a question on RomneyCare, explaining the problems of community banks, and driving home the key message: He is the only candidate ready for prime time. He amped up the populism, continuing on his China currency crusade and tweaking the Texas governor for the huge number of uninsured residents.He also scored a point on national security, telling the audience that defense cuts were a really bad idea. More importantly, he didn’t need to dismantle Herman Cain. That happened at Cain’s own hands with some help from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Rick Santorum and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) He managed to drop New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s name, reminding voters and press alike that this may have been his best day in the race.

Gov. Rick Perry looked sleepy for much of the debate. He seemed to have one answer for everything: energy. He didn’t have his economic plan ready to go so all he could do was stall. He got skewered by moderator and Post reporter Karen Tumulty on his crony capitalism, saying states should have the right to do these things unlike the feds and pleading that not all the people who got money were donors. There were other disasters as well. At one point he peevishly said, “We don’t need to focus on this policy or that policy. We need to get America working again.” Ooof. At moments it looked like he simply wanted to get out of there. And perhaps after Iowa, he will get his chance to do just that. In short, Perry struck out looking.

Surprisingly, Herman Cain had a bad outing as well. It was so bad, even Ron Paul scored a point by deriding Cain’s praise of former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. Ooof. He seemed under-prepared to answer attacks on his 9-9-9 plan.

In not getting bruised and by demonstrating his superior campaign skills, Romney came out the big winner. Perry didn’t help himself a bit, and now risks slipping behind Bachmann and others. Bachmann brought her A game, but now will have to translate that to fundraising and support in Iowa. And Santorum seems ready to move up as others fail. This was, most of all, Cain’s big moment. He didn’t maximize his opportunity, and instead likely increased doubts about his preparedness to run for and be president. Much can change between now and January, but unless other candidates change the dynamics of the race, Romney will slowly but surely move to lock up the nomination.

Fed Up With the Author of "Fed Up!"?

You have to love it when the putative Tea Party champion in the GOP is getting slammed from both the right - e.g., see Michael Medved in the previous post - and the queen of snark, Maureen Dowd. The irony is that the Tea Party loons (not to mention the Christianists who attended Perry religious extremist confab) could not wait for Rick Perry to get in the GOP presidential candidate race. Now Perry seems best suited for advancing the candidacy of Mitt Romney who is loathed by Tea Party Kool-Aid drinkers. It's truly enough to make one smile on a dreary rainy day like we're having today in Hampton Roads. One can only hope that the trajectory for Perry continues downward and that the result is a repudiation of the Tea Party embrace of ignorance and bigotry. Here are some highlights from Dowd's column in the New York Times:

IN a flash, Rick Perry has gone from Republican front-runner to cycling domestique, riding in front of the pack and taking all the wind — or in this case, hot air — to allow the team leader to pedal in the slipstream.

In the debate on Thursday night in Florida, as Perry grew more Pinteresque, lapsing into long, paralyzed pauses, Mitt Romney grew less statuesque, breaking his marble mold and showing a new sarcastic streak. Romney unveiled his own version of Reagan’s “There you go again,” repeatedly blowing off Perry with a smile and a “Nice try.”

[F]or now, Perry is proving to be Romney’s best asset. Asked the 3 a.m. question by a moderator, Bret Baier of Fox News, what would a President Perry do if he got a call saying Pakistan had lost control of its nuclear weapons to the Taliban, the Texas governor offered a Palinesque meditation on “the Pakistani country.”

“Well, obviously, before you ever get to that point, you have to build a relationship in that region,” he said. “And that’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Just yesterday we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country — so to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.” But can he see the Taj Mahal from his house?

For now, Romney is effectively using Perry as a whipping boy on issues that matter to conservatives, like illegal immigration. And when Perry attacks Romney as “Obama lite,” he could be doing Mitt a favor by reminding independents and Democrats that the Stormin’ Mormon is a pseudo-conservative whom they can abide. Authenticity can be overrated, especially in a rabid conservative.

Is Rick Perry Beginning to Self -Destruct?

From the years I lived in Texas while in-house counsel to an oil company I learned that in some ways Texas is a world unto itself, especially in the realm of politics. The fact that one can win the governor's office doesn't mean that one is ready for prime time on the national stage. Chimperator Bush made it to the national stage and the nation has paid a high price in putting Texas style politics - and intellectual limitations - in the White House. I'll admit, Rick Perry scares me to death and strikes in the same league as Michele Bachmann. Fortunately, his debate performances may be about to sink his cowboy style campaign, especially as more facts about the faux "Texas miracle" continue to come to light. Michael Medved - who I increasingly write off as a nutcase - has a column at The Daily Beast that's none to kind to Perry. Here are some highlights:

If two hours of questions and answers produced no decisive winner, they did indicate a clear loser. In his third debate appearance Rick Perry looked and sounded ill-prepared, uncertain, dull, vacuous and embarrassingly out of his depth. Even the Texan’s top admirers (and I like him personally and greatly respect his achievements as governor) must cringe at the chilling prospect of a Perry-Obama debate. The take-away message impression from the evening’s encounter showed everyone else getting better (even the crotchety, eccentric uncle-from-the-attic, Ron Paul) while Governor Perry got much worse.

What hurt him most weren’t the tentative, insecure moments when he tried to defend himself against attacks (from Rick Santorum in particular, but also from Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney) but the feeble, stumbling occasions when he tried to go on offense in his own right against his chief rival, Romney. An obviously canned “gotcha” line intended to slam Romney for switching sides on several major issues (abortion, gun rights, health care) collapsed into such tongue-tied incoherence that it became uncomfortable to watch. Romney deftly responded that he set out his substantive positions clearly and unequivocally in the book he wrote two years ago (No Apology) and that he stood behind every argument and proposal specified in the text.

In the weeks ahead, Perry’s campaign will begin to lose support from both the right and the center, and he’ll watch the broad coalition he’s tried to assemble begin to gradually disintegrate. After puzzlingly impotent defenses of his own record on in-state tuition for illegal aliens and the state-sponsored HPV vaccine, Perry will see desertions from true Tea Party believers and conviction conservatives on the question of authenticity, while he’ll simultaneously give up backers to Romney on the issue of electability.

The question isn’t whether Perry can sustain his current status as front runner (he can’t). It’s whether he can maintain enough support (for all his money and charm and currently formidable poll numbers) to remain in the race as a viable candidate at all.

For the sake of the nation, lets hope the implosion of Perry continues. We do not a less competent dose of the Chimperator.

Another GOP Debate Circus - Audience Boos Gay Soldiers

Last night's GOP debate again underscored the depths to which the Republican Party has sunk and it's in ability to field a true strong rational candidate. But then again, when you allow your political party to be taken over by crazy people and religious fanatics, it tends to send the sane people fleeing. For all his failings, at least Romney comes across as not crazy even if he's too willing to pander to the mental ward escapees that make up the GOP base. And true to form, the Tea Party/Christianist audience again displayed their underlying bigotry by booing when a gay soldier serving in Iraq asked a question. Never mind that he's putting his life on the line for the nation and protection the right of these batshit crazy folks to spew bile. My died in the wool Republican ancestors must be spinning in their graves over such mediocrity and insanity. Here's one analysis of the debate from the Washington Post:

[T]here’s no headline to be had here. Mitt Romney is easily the best in the field at doing this; he’s really the only one up there who seems even remotely well-cast as a presidential candidate. Of the rest, I suppose Rick Santorum shows pretty good statewide-debate-level chops, and Ron Paul certainly has his Ron Paul thing down cold. The other six are just awful at it.

It’s hard to tell whether these candidates have a basic grasp of policy beyond the most superficial talking points. Both Perry (on his astonishingly bad Pakistan answer) and Romney (on a Romneycare answer) left room for devastating attacks, but no one was either knowledgeable enough to notice or sharp enough to see it and come up with a good line — which left dozens of operatives smacking their heads in frustration.

Did I mention Rick Perry’s answer on Pakistan yet? Asked what he would do in the case of a 3 a.m. phone call saying that the Taliban had control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, Perry’s answer was that, as president, he would have strengthened the U.S. alliance with India … and so he could let India handle it. At least, that’s the closest I could get to understanding it.

Michele Bachmann doesn’t seem even remotely bound by facts, does she?

The ability of these Republican debate crowds to embarrass their party – this time, by booing the gay soldier – continues to be the theme of the debate season. It’s worth noting that, this time and last, it was a handful of people, so it’s even remotely fair to tar the whole party with the actions of a few blowhards, but it really is something, nevertheless.

Remember, the main way these early debates matter is to the extent, if any, that Republican Party actors take them into consideration when making choices. I have no idea what they’re thinking, but it’s hard to imagine that Rick Perry is helping himself so far.

White House Caught Napping on Financial Crisis

I am gaining a new respect for Campbell Brown who seems to be growing a set and willing to be more that a mere parrot for sound bites issued by others. Now she's going after the Chimperator for being asleep at the wheel on the financial debacle that has occurred on his watch and mostly under a Republican economic model. Would that more in the media would remind the public that the ground work for the crisis and lack of regulation occurred under a GOP White House and GOP controlled Congress. Despite his stunts and theatrics, McCain is part and parcel with the group that allowed this mess to occur. Many of the problems in this country can be traced to a failure of the media to do its job and ask hard questions, expose lies and demand accountability. Here are highlights from Brown's recent commentary on CNN:

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NEW YORK (CNN) --

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"I have great, great confidence in our capital markets and in our financial institutions. Our financial institutions, banks and investment banks, are strong. Our capital markets are resilient. They're efficient. They're flexible."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, March 16, 2008

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"Our policy in this administration -- laws shouldn't bail out lenders, laws shouldn't help speculators."
President Bush, May 19, 2008

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"Our economy has continued growing, consumers are spending, business are investing, exports continue increasing and American productivity remains strong. We can have confidence in the long-term foundation of our economy...I think the system basically is sound. I truly do."

President Bush, July 15, 2008

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Those were the words of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President George W. Bush just a few months ago. Today, of course, they have been proven completely wrong. They are now telling us we are in a dire crisis, and that we must hand over hundreds of billions of dollars so they can lead us out of this mess.

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What's amazing to me is that the administration seems a little surprised that Congress and the American people are not marching in lockstep with them on this and not fully appreciating the urgency. Well here's why, in one word: accountability.

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This administration missed the boat on this crisis. They didn't see it coming. That's why when Bush goes on TV in a few minutes, he will face a very wary audience. And Secretary Paulson, frankly, you didn't help the situation with your initial, imperious request to Congress that you be handed this money and that your decisions "may not be reviewed by any court of law or administrative agency." Seriously, what were you thinking?

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We need serious scrutiny and debate, and that should happen whether we are talking about a giant piece of legislation that is going to affect us all, or whether we are talking about presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Last Night's Presdiential Debates

I watched the presidential debates last night , including the GOP portion as part of my "know your enemy" approach to politics. I am not going to say who won or lost any of the debates because in many ways they seemed to be a draw. However, Romney took a real pounding and deservedly so, and Huckabee clearly came across as the GOP candidate who is the best speaker and outwardly the most relaxed (the two may be interrelated). Of course, part of Huckabee's relaxed state may be due to his belief that God is intervening on his behalf since God wants him to be president.

On the Democrat side, I think Hillary failed to do any real damage to Obama and came just shy of looking peevish a couple of times - something that will not help her image issue on likability. Edwards definitely came across as impassioned and in a number of ways was supportive of Obama's position. Obama seemed to manage to fend off Hillary's attacks, so it will be interesting to see what the next round of polls shows.

One big factor working behind the scenes that was noted by the Democrat candidates and also in the Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/) is the difference in tone between the GOP candidates for the most part and those for the Dems. The negative versus positive feeling coming from the two groups is markedly obvious. Likewise is the GOP's failure to recognize issues that are truly important to everyday Americans. Moreover, a Kos noted:

[T]he GOP has people who alienate Latinos and minorities, and treat 9/11 as a vehicle for personal gain. We have campaigns that bring out new people to vote. I think I'd rather be on our team than their team. And I think we're about to see that America would, too.

The 2-1 turnout for the Democratic caucuses in Iowa seems to lend credence to this concept. Hopefully, the GOP will continue to be oblivious to the concerns of most Americans and remain focused on the check list provided mostly by the party's lunatic Christianist base.