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" ORLANDO \u2014 He&amp;#039;s never going to be president. Hell, right now he&amp;#039;s looking up at Herman Cain, but it&amp;#039;s still comforting to know that, in the annals of completely unwarranted self-regard, and as a purveyor of pure, unalloyed horse-hockey, there is Newt Gingrich and there is everybody else. Over the weekend here, in the space of one address, he stated firmly that he never speaks in talking points, and then used the phrase &amp;quot;European bureaucratic socialism&amp;quot; twice in two minutes. (As one of his several ex-wives told John H. Richardson a while back, what Newt says is never seriously related to what Newt does.)  However, his big moment came when he announced that, if nominated, he would immediately challenge Barack Obama to a series of &amp;quot;seven, Lincoln-Douglas-style debates.&amp;quot;      Newt, you see, is a man of ideas, and one of his ideas is that he is a historical figure already. Rarely do you see a man visibly carving himself in marble before your eyes. Or, in this case, fitting himself with a stovepipe hat and chin whiskers. (Even though, if the historical record is accurate, Newt is shaped more like Douglas than like Lincoln.) Anyway, he&amp;#039;s already played these out in his mind, like a teenage girl singing Beyonc\u00E9 songs into a hairbrush in front of a mirror. And only a heartless cad would point out that, a few sentences earlier, Newt had advocated returning to the principles of the 10th Amendment, which was precisely the argument used against the federal government&amp;#039;s power to restrict slavery in the territories employed by... wait for it... Stephen A. Douglas. Here&amp;#039;s the whole speech, for a lunchtime laugh: "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a10964/newt-gingrich-speech-florida-straw-poll-video-6496147/>