Professor John Pitney expends a lot of words in explaining why Gingrich would lose to Obama if they held a bunch of Lincoln-Douglas style debates. Some of his reasoning is simply argumentative or purely speculative, and most of it is beside the point. In any such series of debates, Obama would clearly be cast in the character of Honest Abe, while the Georgian congressman and disgraced former Speaker of the House would be cast as Douglas. That would be the same Douglas who said this during the first Lincoln-Douglas debate:
I ask you, are you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? (“No, no.”) Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to flow in, (“never,”) and cover your prairies with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, (“no, no,”) in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? (“Never,” “no.”) If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. (“Never, never.”) For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. (Cheers.) I believe this Government was made on the white basis. (“Good.”) I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity for ever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. (“Good for you.” “Douglas forever.”)
Gingrich’s rhetoric is somewhat updated. He talks about food stamps instead of sitting on juries, for example. He talks about the government being made on the Christian, rather than white, basis. Meanwhile, his opponent would actually be a negro.
Under the circumstances, it’s really not possible that Gingrich could win the argument.
