The Republican leadership race enters a critical stage tonight as candidates assemble in Arizona for a TV debate in a contest that has showcased how the debate format can be a game-changer.
Nearly a month has passed since the last debate, which took place ahead of the Florida primary on January 31st.
Ahead of that primary, and the South Carolina primary before it, GOP candidates used the debate stage to influence voters and alter the outcome.
Newt Gingrich won South Carolina based on his debate performances, and Mitt Romney effectively used the Florida debates to counter attack and win decisively.
Tonight’s debate performances will be crucial ahead of the Arizona and Michigan primaries next Tuesday and the 10 state contests that take place a week after that on March 6th Super Tuesday.
The dynamics of the overall race have dramatically changed since the last debate, with Rick Santorum emerging in February as a serious challenger to Mitt Romney after a string of Midwest wins in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota.
Meanwhile, the Romney campaign has the appearance of being stuck in second gear.
The Santorum surge in Arizona and Michigan now appears to be pulling back, with this morning’s latest poll indicating a tightening of the Michigan race and Mr. Romney in the lead in Arizona.
But Mr. Santorum can still use the tonight’s debate in Mesa, Arizona, to keep the pressure on the Romney campaign. Here are the various campaign game plans:
Rick Santorum
The former Pennsylvania senator has been able to deliver sharp lines during past TV debates on Mr. Romney’s years as Massachusetts governor, focusing in particular on his health-care reform as a model for President Barack Obama’s health-care reforms.
Equating ‘Romneycare’ with ‘Obamacare’ is an effective line. It questions Mr. Romney’s conservative ideological credentials and his ability to fight Mr. Obama in a general election where Republicans expect their candidate to call for a repeal of the Obama health-care legislation.
Mr. Santorum will continue to present himself as a sharper contrast to Mr. Obama, whereas Mr. Romney, as the Santorum campaign has argued, has held positions “identical” to Mr. Obama’s policies.
But also look for CNN moderator John King to press Mr. Santorum on some of his recent ‘gaffes’ – that is, if you believe they are indeed gaffes rather than a deliberate attempt to draw attention and motivate conservative audiences.
Mr. Santorum has delivered some memorable moments in the lead-up to the debate, accusing Mr. Obama of believing in “a phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible” and then having to explain that he was not questioning the president’s Christianity.
He has also had to deny that he was comparing President Obama to Hitler, and one of his aides had to call a TV network after her interview and withdraw a comment in which she used the phrase ”radical Islamic policies” to describe Mr. Obama’s views.
In the most recent twist, the U.S. website Drudge Report unearthed a 2008 speech in which Mr. Santorum posed the question: “If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?”
In the audio recording, Mr. Santorum explains to a private Catholic university audience in Florida: “This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America.”
But Mr. Santorum can easily turn a debate question about his ‘Satan’ comments to his advantage and electrify the audience in the same way that Mr. Gingrich used the South Carolina debates to turn question about his marital history to attack none other than CNN’s John King for starting the debate on such a question.
He did the same during a FOX News debate when the moderator asked Mr. Gingrich whether he could see how demeaning it was to call Mr. Obama a “food stamp president.”
Mr. Gingrich delivered one of the most-applauded lines of the debate.
“The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Mr. Gingrich answered. “I know among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”
