THE FUTURE OF NEWT?

Wow, this is just awesome:

Gingrich: I wouldn't accept debate versus Obama moderated by reporters

Newt Gingrich threatened Monday to skip any debate as the Republican nominee versus President Obama that's moderated by a member of the media.

"As your nominee, I will not accept debates in the fall in which the reporters are the moderators," Gingrich said at a rally in Pensacola. "We don’t need to have a second Obama person at the debate."

... Gingrich has made his debating prowess a central selling point of his candidacy, promising fantastical showdowns with Obama in the general election. A frequent applause line for Gingrich, for instance, is his promise to challenge the president to seven, three-hour Lincoln-Douglas style debates....

I am so very, very sorry this guy won't be the Republican nominee. The only thing that would be more advantageous for Obama than getting to stand on a podium and watch Gingrich unleash hours of obnoxious, self-important cockamamie rhetoric in debates would be Gingrich engaging in a divaesque refusal to debate Obama unless the presidential debate commission changed all the rules that have applied to debates for decades, just to accommodate Newt.

And, really, what an idiot: doesn't Gingrich realize that, without debate moderators as foils, he'd be back home right now, as much of an also-ran as Bachmann, Huntsman, and Perry? His insults of debate moderators have been the only real high points (although I don't think that's the right expression) of his campaign.

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But it occurs to me that we may be getting a glimpse of Newt Gingrich's possible future.

I could see him riding the rails from town to town, with nothing but a portable lectern and a cardboard valise, offering to take on any and all comers in ... a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates! Three hours! No moderator! Come one, come all! Step right up! Do you think you have what it takes to out-pontificate The Mighty Newt?

He could be like an itinerant pool hustler -- except he'd be an itinerant pool hustler of civilization-altering transformational change! It would be awesome! Maybe he could even do one of these debates on the moon!

(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)