Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, if he gets the nomination, says he’ll refuse any debates with a reporter as the moderator.
Gingrich, who got a lot support for his now-famous dressing down of CNN reporter John King in the South Carolina debates, suggests that most reporters are secret Obama supporters anyway.
“As your nominee, I will not accept debates in the fall in which the reporters are the moderators,” he said yesterday at a rally in Pensacola, Fla.
“We don’t need to have a second Obama person at the debate.”
The audience at the South Carolina debate two weeks ago gave Gingrich a standing ovation after he scolded the CNN anchor for asking a question about his sex life. That stand-out TV moment was credited with giving Gingrich an easy win two days later in the state’s primary election.
Just who else might moderate a debate between President Obama and Gingrich — if he wins the nomination — is a question the organizers of presidential debates have never had to grapple with.
Since 1987, when the Commission on Presidential Debates was established, no one other than a TV reporter has chaired the event.
A commission spokesman declined to speculate on what they would do if Gingrich won the nomination, saying “It wouldn’t be appropriate for the commission to comment on something that’s premature and hypothetical.”