The Texas Tea Party Patriots will host a "modified Lincoln-Douglas debate.” And what is a Lincoln/Douglas debate? In simple terms, it is the brass knuckles of the rhetorical fight scene. While the event will be sponsored by the Texas Tea Party Patriots, it is the brain child of Newt Gingrich. Only two of the GOP candidates have agreed to participate; Newt and, surprisingly, Herman Cain.
It is a contest of ideas and issues named after Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. These two men debated each other back in 1858. The contest took 4 months. The two men took the debate to seven different states and traveled some 10,000 miles during the four month ordeal.
As I understand the rules of this style of debate, if there is a moderator, he only deals with time limits. He does not drive the discussion or control the responses of the opponents.
Just in case you have forgotten, the TEA movement is driving the current political circumstance and has been doing so since mid-summer, 2009. Its goal is two pronged: rid the nation of the Marxist influence and its legislative agenda, and, tw0, defeat Establishment Republicans at every turn. The 2010 mid-terms were all about this push, and the success of the TEA movement, on both counts, was astounding.
The debate will take place on Saturday, November 5 and will deal with the two men’s (Gingrich and Cain) views on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Tentatively, it is scheduled as a 3 hour event.
I believe that this is a great move for Herman Cain. Few believe that Cain can hold his own in debates with Brack Obama, as if the election will be about Obama vs someone else. If Cain holds his own with Newt, he will have increased his worth as a candidate, the money will start pouring in, and he will have laid hold of “front runner” within the GOP.
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