Oh, if only ;))
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That would reduce it to mano a mano. Gingrich longs to roam the country for months and engage his opponent in three-hour Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. Repress, for the moment, the realization that Gingrich must see himself as Lincoln in these historical re-creations — though he looks more like Douglas — and consider the idea on its merits. Gingrich is verbose and cunning; he can deploy words like lethal weapons. But Clinton, who was born talking and never stopped, can match him word for word, hour after hour, until the last dog flaps its ears down. It would be a blabfest for the ages, and my money, based on my study of the two Hall of Fame gabbers, would be on Clinton.
Gingrich and Clinton share a propensity to think they are the smartest person in the room. When they were in rooms together, in the mid-1990s, Clinton dominated. He knew Gingrich’s vocabulary, he understood how to outwonk him, and the result was that the president mesmerized and overwhelmed the otherwise-cocky House speaker. “I’ve got a problem, I get in those meetings and as a person I like the President,” Gingrich acknowledged during the era, when I was reporting on the “Republican revolution” with my colleague Michael Weisskopf. “I melt when I’m around him. After I get out, I need two hours to detoxify. My people are nervous about me going in there because of the way I deal with this.”
That confession came during the battle over the government shutdown in late 1995, a variation of the confrontations Obama had with House Republicans last year. Clinton ate Gingrich alive back then. There is no reason to believe he has lost that magic spell. I sense that would become obvious by hour three of one of their great debates, if anyone still happened to be listening.
DO SOMETHING!
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