In one of the weirder moments of the campaign, Newt Gingrich denounced his rivals for the GOP nomination for "ducking" the debate that CNN wanted to schedule for March 1, in Georgia. The debate would have been held two days before Super Tuesday when ten states hold primaries and the other candidates said that they could not make time in their schedules to spend the time required for the debate and travel to and from Georgia during that busy week. Since this would have been the twenty-first debate of the GOP campaign, it is hard to imagine that Romney, Santorum or Paul were "ducking" due to the pressure of such a debate. Indeed, Newt's claims to the contrary were pretty amusing.
The truth is that the debates served their purpose well. Republicans got to see the candidates under pressure and to get a measure of each. Clearly, the debates were the principal reason that Rick Perry failed. They also played a big part in getting Pawlenty to throw in the towel. The debates also enabled Cain to move up quickly and they let Gingrich come back after some early self-inflicted wounds. Enough is enough, however. I particularly did not want to see another one of these extravaganzas. After all, there will be a debate this coming week. Did we really need another one a week later? I don't think so.
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