TWO-TRICK PONY

I only watched bits of tonight's debate, but Newt Gingrich didn't say anything particularly noteworthy while I was watching, and the general pundit consensus is that he didn't come close to having the big night he needed to have to stop the free-spending, sorta-surging Mitt Romney in Florida.

And, well, why should he have had a good night? People say he's had "a series of impressive debate performances," or words to that effect, but what he's had, mostly, is a series of debates in which he's baited a moderator -- Chris Wallace in August, John Harris in September, Maria Bartiromo in November, and, of course, John King earlier this month. There was also the nasty exchange with Juan Williams this month, which was a two-fer: Gingrich got to attack a representative of the media who was also a black person, on a question about race.

But if you don't have a non-white questioner asking Gingrich a question about race, and the questioners you do have don't say anything he finds particularly provocative, he's got no game -- he needs someone who gives him an excuse to go on the attack. It turns out he's not even as good at attacking Barack Obama in debates as Mitt Romney is. He's just not very impressive if there isn't someone he can look in the eye and verbally bludgeon. He certainly doesn't get the partisan crowd pumped. That's all he's got -- deprive him of it and he's not even good for laughs for the rest of us.