Posted on 01/24/2012 8:21:28 AM PST by Bigtigermike
Newt Gingrich insists his fans will not be silenced.
Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. That was the case on Monday, when Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks.
In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I noticed.. the first thing the MSM did was say that he didn’t get as warm a welcome, if at all, this time... They are skipping out on telling the truth.. that those were the rules set from the beginning. Perfect st-up there... like we didn’t see THAT coming. I fully expected the outcome (from the media) to be exactly like that. :/
So while the enthusiasm for Gingrich is genuine, this enthusiasm can be manufactured as well and this will be what we see in October if we allow this to get out of hand.
Debates should be held without an audience in my opinion. This need not produce solemn and boring affairs. In fact, we should change the role of the moderators as well. Instead of being able to ask or relay the questions from the audience, their role should only be to regulate the amount of time a candidate gets to speak. The candidates should be asking their own questions of each other in the Lincoln-Douglas style. Now that would be much more entertaining to watch than to have some loser on YouTube asking a question about homosexual marriage.
Newt is right and this move is a continuation of speaking for conservatives who are slandered, spit on, and told to just be quiet while the “smart people” figure this out.
Excellent move Newt.
Brian didnt say that
I was being silly
:)
I can’t stand hooting, hollering, and booing at a debate either. Doesn’t matter who the candidates are. I find it annoying and distracting.
Controlling who gets the tickets is what matters the most in audience reactions.
Then you can return to belatedly trusting the talking heads about the audience response to the debaters. I'd prefer to see and hear the real thing in real time.
American idol politics.
Campaign rallies are where audience reactions belong.
As pointed out earlier....if you want the audience to play such a role, how would you feel about a debate between Gingrich and Obama where the audience is packed with Obama supporters?
Aw, c’mon, people!! Get REAL!
These debates are in REAL LIFE, with REAL candidates, speaking about REAL issues, in REAL time, that affect YOU.
Ginggrich is right to object to NBC’s attempt at suppressing your fellow Americans’ REAL-time responses to what these candidates (and the moderators) are saying. These are not “stacked” audiences; they’re right-of-center to conservative audiences of people having a particular interest in the Republican nomination for President, and it is to our advantage to have these audiences’ responses register visibly, and audibly on a national stage. The nation needs to know what we think, and to HEAR how strongly we feel about particular issues. God knows Boehner, McConnell, and Co. haven’t the stones to do it; they’re practically deaf up there in Washington. So people like you and I need to be able to go to a debate between candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination and make our voices heard so that the world knows where we stand, and how firmly.
AFTER the nomination; AFTER our candidate is chosen, and the cross-party Presidential debates begin; THEN it will be appropriate to request that the audience restrain themselves, because THEN the audience will be a mixed audience, and we do NOT want to see a Presidential debate descend into a hooting and hollering match between markedly diverse political factions.
NOW, however, with the scope of these present debates limited to GOP/Conservative interests; let the audience loose. Americans across this country need to have it register with them, in a visceral way, how Conservatives respond to media, and to the issues the moderators bring up. In these one-party debates, audience response is both important, and appropriate. Let it be.
“If the audience can’t participate, then why have an audience? Newt is right.”
No, he is wrong. Here is why: What if a bunch of Obama supporters showed up chanting their dear leaders latest slogan, or raucously supported a different candidate? The same “free speech” rules apply.
The debate was a private forum, and NBC had the right to ask the audience to be respectful of that. I was a little surprised how compliant they were as an audience, but still they’ve got the right to do so.
I'm with Newt.
You are 100% correct its the MSM meddling trying to once again choose the candidate to run against Obama. That would be magic underwear boy err Romney. Gingrich should tell them to sod off.
I prefer the professional wrestling audience approach for the debate format.
I think they’re just trying to set a precedent for when he debates Hussein, so it doesn’t appear to be because of him. They would be apoplectic if Gingrich got such applause while debating Zero.
One of Newt’s problems has always been ego. His shtick in these debates is using rhetoric which he thinks will incite the audience, thereby making him look more “electable” and conservative.
He’s not a true conservative, never was. And his “media bias” attacks are already wearing thin. Playing to a republican base is a hell of a lot different than playing to the rest of the country. He can’t make it through that successfully. Which is why he’ll lose in the general.
About a month ago or so, Rush presciently warned about selecting a nominee solely because of debate performances.
What people hear and what they see are not necessarily always the same; the MSM is going to say that Obama won the debate no matter what; there will be 2-3 presidential debates at max- and many long days of campaigning that will likely decide the outcome, etc.
Time to move the ball forward.
Newt’s sounding nuttier every day.
Headline is a lie and doesn’t match the reality of what Newt said on Fox & Friends.
Protesting... is not pulling out of the debate.
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