Gingrich, Cuomo, Russert - A Lincoln Debate
Imagine a world where politicians articulate grand visions, outline concrete plans and debate distinct proposals.
Imagine further that critics critique not with quips, putdowns, poll-tested soundbites and snarky smackdowns, but creative solutions of their own.
And if we let our imaginations run a little wild, let us think too of a media landscape that embraces and focusses on the ideas themselves and not the horse race, petty rivalries, insignificant faux paus and gotcha-with-your-pants-down amplification of the trivial and insignificant.
And as birds chirp, the sun rises and citizens engage in open, honest debate, let us imagine further the flowering of possibility, ingenuity, rejuvenation and all that is good, decent and possible in this grand experiment we call the American dream.
Now awake from that dream and re-imerge into landscape of right-wing wingnuts and left-wing moonbats, hatchet jobs and pettiness.
Awake to a world where war, peace, security, religion, wealth, health, poverty, the environment, society, media and democracy are reduced to pithy, poll-tested phrases.
Let’s dream again and float back 150 years to a different time and place, back to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln gave speech in New York that opposed Stephen A. Douglas on the role of the federal government on the spread of slavery.
At the time, over a thousand people paid to hear the obscure, recently defeated US senate candidate. The speech was printed in newspapers, and then reprinted in pamphlets .
“At a decisive moment in defining America,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “a politician who thought that language, ideas, and reasoned thought matter, could make a decisive difference.”
Gingrich was speaking at Cooper Union, where he joined Mario Cuomo, former New York governor, in a debate moderated by Tim Russert, host of “Meet the Press.â€
Think about what happened on this stage. Lincoln spends three months preparing at the state library of Springfield. He comes here with a written text of 7,300 words. He delivers it… He then goes on to Rhode Island, to Massachusetts to New Hampshire and gives it once each… He goes back home to Illinois and that’s it.
“When people write him a letter and ask him his position, he says, read the speech. And he says very specifically: If I were to send you part of it you would take it out of context and exagerate it. Now that took moral courage.”
Perhaps Gingrich has historical envy, pining for the days when politicians were thinkers and thinkers were the stars of the American landscape.
Or perhaps he’s onto something, as he enlisted Cooper Union and Cuomo in issuing a challenge to the current crop of presidential contenders to elevate debate and discard the trivialization of politics by appearing at long-form debates such as the Cooper event captured in the video above.
“The process is decaying at a level that is bizarre,” Gingrich noted, “and it’s a mutual synergistic decay between candidates, consultants and the news media. And it’s fundamentally wrong for the survival of this country because the challenges we face are so great. “
Or, as Cuomo told the New York Times about what passes for current presidential debate, “Ninety seconds to answer is designed largely to test glibness, memory, spontaneity and theatricality. What you should be testing is the person’s judgment, wisdom, experience. You don’t get that by hiding the questions from him and seeing if you can catch him by surprise.â€
Lincoln came from a tradition of great debates. His 1858 sparring with Stephen A. Douglas for the Illinois Senate seat are legendary and the format is still practiced today.
“Lincoln called for cold, calculated reason,” explained Russert as he introduced the event. “And that is the standard we have set.”
And as the race for 2008 picks up steam, as we already hear about the gossip about this candidate and that. as we trivialize to the point of absurdity, maybe it’s time to dream a bit again.
I find it no small irony that Gingrich promotes elevated discourse now when his was anything but when he led the Republican revolution.
If I remember correctly, he pretty much aimed take no prisoners, slash and burn barbs at his opponents.
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