It’s not really what folks are used to, and that’s a good thing.

It was also on C-SPAN, and it happened opposite the LSU-Alabama game, so naturally nobody watched it. Even the head of the Tea Party group in The Woodlands, Texas, who put it on, is an LSU fan and let’s face it didn’t really want to be there.

And the fact that these two guys actually like each other and don’t particularly disagree about anything means the debate lacked the normal fireworks people who aren’t political junkies usually need to stay interested.

Never mind that. This is how debates ought to be done. One on one, everybody has time to make their points, arguments rather than sound bites.

Who won? Gingrich won. It wasn’t close. Nobody can touch this guy where policy is concerned.

The buzz is that this is a Cain-Gingrich ticket rollout, which but for the fact that both of them are from Georgia isn’t a bad idea. It’s clear there are some pretty serious holes in Cain’s expertise on policy questions, and not just on foreign policy. He’s a business guy, not a politician by trade, and because of that he’s going to have problems on issues that he’s not qualified to speak intelligently about. As the campaign goes along he’s got to overcome that, obviously, but if Cain is your president and that’s a concern then you grab a guy like Gingrich as your VP and nobody can question whether your ticket lacks knowledge.

Of course, that calls this into question: why, if Newt is the guy who knows all this stuff, would you not want him at the top of the ticket?

Anyway, here’s the debate nobody has seen yet…