While I will acknowledge that Newt Gingrich is a feiry debater and would most certainly clean Obama's clock in any debate format, the idea that Newt would be able to win soely on his strengths as a debater, is really more wishful thinking than reality.
The fact is, is that Obama would never agree to six Lincoln-Douglas style debates. Obama and his handlers are not stupid when it comes to elections, and would never allow him to be skewered over and over again in any debate format. At most, I believe Obama would agree to two debates with Gingrich. He would probably agree to three with Romney because I Obama is probably not very scared of Mitt in a debate.
Conservatives need to do a better job of evaluating the candidates. Just using the debates as the primary measure of a candidates qualifications is not a very smart way to make such an important decision. All things need to be considered. Its interesting to me that when people evaluate Mitt Romney, the rightly consider his past flip flops and wonder if he is a true conservative.
Newt, however, seems to get a pass on this same thing. Despite the fact that he has supported both global warming and a federal indvidual mandate for health care, to name just a few of his positions where he has departed from Conservative thought, Newt is considered by many to be the most conservative candidate left in the field. He also has positiioned himself as an outsider, despite the fact that he served in Congress from 1978 to 1998, and still lives in the DC area.
All I am saying is that before one decides all of the facts and the positives and negatives with all of the candidates. Only then should he or she make a decision on who should be the republican nominee.
