I personally believe President Obama has the ability to eviscerate MasterDebater Newt in a debate.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I'm getting really sick of this horseshit about how it would be Newt's shining hour to debate Obama because he'd wipe the floor with him.

I think the opposite would happen, but only if President Obama wanted it. And if he decided to ride Gingrich hard and put him away wet, that's exactly what would happen. He can't hold back (if it comes to that). He'd have to step into the ring, ready to put that fucking slob down.

:patriot:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Someobody, maybe it was Paul Krugman, said Gingrich is

what a stupid person thinks a smart person sounds like. Gingrich's helium-filled head produces a lot of big words but he is really not that sharp intellectually. He just sounds smart if you're not paying attention (and especially next to the likes of Perry and Bachmann). Obama can take him. No question.

[montanto]

15. true: he's mostly sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[yurbud]

21. kind of like Burt Reynolds looked like a genius compared to the hillbillies in Deliverance

[Avalux]

2. The media is trying to convince us to put Newt on the same level as Obama....

he isn't. He's just the next 'flavor of the week' for a desperate Republican base which isn't satisfied with the current selection and now it's Newt's turn to run the gauntlet.

I don't know if Newt will get the nomination. It's just as possible that after Trump's debate, he'll announce none of the candidates are qualified and will run again. Anything is possible.

But if - if Newt is unlucky enough to be the nominee, Obama won't have to stoop to his level and step in the ring. I wouldn't want him to do so with that piece of filth. Obama is clever enough to bait Newt to take himself out. Newt is his own worst enemy.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Go back to 1980. Jimmy Carter was supposed to have easily taken Reagan in debates.

Reagan turned it all around with pithy one-liners like "Are you better off now than you were in 1976?" He also employed folksy "Aw, shucks!" and used his lack of debate skills as an advantage with portraying himself as a plain-spoken Everyman and Carter as a Washington Insider who was too smart to be able to talk directly to the American People.

Expect a similar "strategy" with Newt.

[SkyDaddy7]

5. Expect Newt to be what he is...

A Right Wing Christian Authoritarian...And Americans are SUCKERS for Right Wing Authoritarians who talk with such arrogance it does not matter if they know what they are talking about.

DO NOT underestimate Newt when it comes to appealing to many Americans! Scary stuff!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. Yep, that's what I'm saying...

...I am confident that there is more than enough intelligence on Team Obama to clearly understand how Gingrich would approach this "opportunity" (unless Romney defies the odds and becomes the GOP pick).

Part of what Obama would need to do would be to balance Gingrich's rhetoric against his record. He can talk all of the "folksy" crap he wants to talk, but when you hold Newt's record up to the harsh cold light of the day, it's far less inspiring.

[phleshdef]

9. I admire Jimmy Carter greatly. But he isn't the debater that President Obama is.

[yellowcanine]

10. A few problems with that. 1)It is not 1980 2)Obama is not Carter 3) Newt is not Reagan

I agree that Newt may try to be Reaganesque and draw parallels with 1980 and Carter. And this is exactly why Obama will flatten him.

Under Carter the economy was stuck on a high "misery index" - high unemployment, high interest rates. - not of his making, but nevertheless, it was.

Iran was holding Americans hostage.


Carter was a technocrat unable to connect with the American people.

Reagan was a disciplined candidate who was able to connect with the American people and could stick to the script his handlers had devised.


Today the economy, while not great at all, is showing signs of improvement, and unlike 1980, the majority of Americans really do not blame Obama for the slowness of the recovery. The things Obama has done with regard to the economy are more or less seen as having helped to keep things from getting much worse. No amount of bs from Newt - or Mitt - is going to change those perceptions.

The perceptions of Obama on foreign policy are even better. The Bush wars are winding down. Most of the U.S. interventions have more or less worked - Egypt, Libya, etc. And Obama gets credit for finally getting Osama bin Laden. Again, no amount of bs from Newt or Mitt is going to change those perceptions.

Obama is the disciplined candidate who can connect with the American people.

Newt is an undisciplined candidate who cannot help but say outrageous things which piss off one part of the electorate or another. Eventually nearly every part of the electorate has something about Newt which pisses them off - maybe not enough to make them vote for Obama, but enough to make them less than enthusiastic about Newt. And people inclined to vote for Obama have extra incentive to go vote, people sort of neutral have incentive to vote against Newt even if they are not terribly thrilled with Obama.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

41. Excellent summary! n/t

[WI_DEM]

14. I don't think Carter was supposed to easily take Reagan

perhaps on debate points--your talking points, yes--and when it was tallied up as if it were a true debate, Carter did edge Reagan, but on the ability to connect with an audience, which is what most people watching the debate seem to consider most important, Reagan was always considered the one to beat. Carter, after all, was considered a mediocre public speaker while Reagan had years of experience in front of the camera and was very telegenic, according to the pundits. Of course it was four years later that Mondale suprised the pundits by beating Reagan in their first debate because Reagan was clearly over prepared and probably suffering from early onset Alheimers. But then in the second debate he was back on form--not substance--but form--with his quip about not making Mondale's 'age and inexperience' an issue.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. I don't think Newt is capable of doing the "aw, shucks" routine.

Newt is too arrogant and in love with what he believes to be his superior intellectual abilities. I don't think he will be able to control his attitude - he just can't do "aw, shucks."

[BlueMTexpat]

20. Newt like Reagan?

:rofl:

Reagan had nowhere near Newt's baggage, morally or ethically. Plus, for better or for worse(!), he had actually served as the Governor of a major US state.

President Obama has the ability to connect with people. Jimmy Carter is a wonderful human being and our country would have been a lot better today if he had won the election in 1980. But he was not the speaker that President Obama ia.

There was also the little matter of Carter's stolen briefing book that was used to prep Reagan so that his "there you go again ..., etc." routine timing would be at its most effective.

[CTyankee]

26. but Reagan was a former movie star and he came across as a nice guy.

Carter came across as chilly.

Someone on Tweety the other day said that Newt has this tendency to throw off his adversaries because he is unpredictable. If Obama is expecting it, it could throw him off in debates...but Obama is smart enough to know that could be a real possibility and would be prepared...

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. Newtie will be destroyed based on his flip flops alone!!

[EC]

7. I don't think Obama would even have

to try that hard. Newt doesn't say ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE, he uses weasel words and phrases that have no meanings. He says a lot of words that say nothing. Obama would just laugh at him. All he would have to do is ask him to explain what he means about anything he says and he would sputter.

[phleshdef]

8. We've seen Obama debate the entire Republican caucus by himself.

We've seen him drag Boehner and Cantor and McCain onto national television for an all day debate on the healthcare bill.

We've seen him debate McCain 3 times by himself and Hillary Clinton like 20 or something... on top of debating with everyone else that ran on the Democratic ticket in 08. Hell, he even had to debate the moderaters a few times during all of that.

We've seen him walk onto a Fox News set and debate Bill O'Reilly (in what was suppose to be an interview of course).

If theres one thing I trust Barack Obama to be able to do, thats handle himself fine in a debate. And the hotter and meaner the asshole is that he is debating, the better he seems to do, honestly. If they think Newt's gonna jump in there and take down Obama by name dropping Saul Alinsky and foaming at the mouth about radical secularism, I say game on.

[JoePhilly]

24. +1

[GoCubsGo]

35. Yep. That healthcare bill meeting was a thing of beauty.

He eviscerated the whole lot of them in front of the entire country. The debates are not what I worry about. It's the bullshit "swiftboating" type ads they'll be running non-stop. It's already been shown that the people in this country slurp that shit up like it's caviar and champagne.

[tallahasseedem]

39. Another +1

Amazing!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

42. Don't forget his awesome performance at that House Republican conference

he took on the whole House Republican conference and pwned them!

[WI_DEM]

11. c'mon is Newt really a master debater?

[opihimoimoi]

12. nope...a master baiter....the dude works on a fishing party boat

[karynnj]

43. He lost pretty badly debating Kerry on climate change

So, badly that many accounts on the right spoke of the audience being all liberals - when it wasn't. Not to mention, Gingrich lost while he conceded that climate change was real, man made and urgent. The latter conceded after Kerry pushed hard a few times for him to answer.

But that was a real debate - not the carefully negotiated type of debate in political elections.

As to those debates, my observation is that Obama is:

far more likable (Not to mention Obama has the lovely Michelle and two smart, well behaved, beautiful daughters vs the cold as ice looking Calista, devout Catholic who had a 6 year affair with Newt before they married. )

comes in with the status of President - meaning the Gingrich positioning himself as superior which he always does will be grating. (To understand this, imagine Kerry, who demonstrated by his answers he knew more, would have seemed arrogant. With Newt/Obama - Obama is not Bush and Gingrich is unlikely to listen when people say that he needs to show respect for the office of the Presidency. Remember, the goal is to win people that do not already hate the President.

has the issues in his favor

really does have accomplishments

[livetohike]

13. There will be a clear choice - a poor tempered, not fit to lead

guy who thinks he is smart versus President Obama who is even tempered and who is smart. No contest in my book. Newt can't go the first five minutes without either raising his voice, or looking irritated.

[Enrique]

16. every time I see "I personally believe"

I think of this, I can't help it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. So I make you think of Miss Teen USA?

You're off by a few decades and a little matter of gender.

:-)

[thelordofhell]

19. It doesn't matter who wins or loses the actual debate

The M$M will give the victory to Newt

[barbtries]

33. yep.

and that's the hell of it.

[yurbud]

22. Obama would only have a problem if he refused to debunk the GOP's pet lies

which he has sometimes embraced rather than stomped like the whole deficit, austerity schtick, floating cuts to SS, and adopting health care reform that conservatives backed until he did it.

[emilyg]

23. I've reached the point where

I don't believe one word that comes out of any of their mouths.

[intaglio]

25. I think you could abbreviate "MasterDebator"

how about Master'bator

[A Simple Game]

27. Obama would only have to do one thing to beat Newt in a debate.

Let Newt do all of the talking.

[BlueIris]

28. I'm less confident of that. And quite certain Gingrich would beat him in the general anyway.

This thing is out of control.

[Azathoth]

29. Newt isn't a master debater, he only looks like one standing next to Cain and Romney n/t

[butterfly77]

30. He held back on Hillary...

and they thought that was the dirtiest campaign in history. They think they know dirty. If he really put it on him as some of us know he can they couldn't take it.

If he really gave it to him and the republiCONS like we want him to he would have plenty of help,this is what many have wanted but he just won't do it.

[MadMaddie]

31. I think that many still don't know him

I agree there have been many times when he could have put his foot in their ass. However; as we continue to see the Republicans desperate attempts to find their candidate they continue to push further to the extreme racist right. What are they attacking him on today? DADT? HCR? Michelle Obamaa, the girls?

I think we have not seen the desperation, the true desperation has not been seen yet?

[butterfly77]

36. Exactly..

On the desperation part. Their hate and insanity is sending them even further over the edge. This campaign will be the dirtiest campaign we have seen in a long time.


They spend their nights plotting up some of the most ridiculous shit and expect to see a lot of Hermain Cain and Allen West among others with something related to black people.

[barbtries]

32. it's looking like

we may get to see that. the sad part is that the media in this country would probably give gingrich the win even if President Obama did wipe the floor with that disgusting excuse for a human. remember sarah palin?

[Hutzpa]

34. I think the GOP has pushed him forward

with the hope that he can bring out the snide remarks against Obama, make subtle racist
remark to waver him, but I think Obama was born for people like Newt, see how he put
Trump away, it was flawless.

It will be fun to watch.

Newt strikes me as a smug individual, the pompous one with his head stuck right up his
dark alley.

[Cigar11]

37. BRING IT ON!

[immoderate]

38. Don't overestimate the electorate.

The masses are not predictable.

--imm

[Douglas Carpenter]

40. in the normal universe yes. but with a generation raised on Fox News

it is hard to say how people will interpret the debates. Even back in 1980 it was obvious to any thinker that Jimmy Carter trounced Ronald Reagan in their one and only debate. But that is not how the media reported it and that is not how much of the public saw it.