Wednesday's 'last shot' presidential debate: What to expect

The CNN face-off in Arizona could be the last on-air showdown of the long GOP nomination fight. A guide to debate #20 Wednesday night may well be the season finale of this year's great American reality TV show: The Republican presidential debates. CNN canceled a scheduled March 1 debate in Atlanta after Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul pulled out, leaving Wednesday's CNN-sponsored debate in Mesa, Ariz., the 20th of the campaign, as the final debate on the calendar. A lot has changed in the month since the four GOP finalists last squared off in Florida, and while "it's easy to hype any debate as a make-or-break moment," says Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast, this really is "the last shot the candidates will have at engaging before a national audience." How will each candidate use this opportunity? Here, five predictions:

1. All eyes will be on Santorum
Santorum is, for the moment, "the de facto frontrunner" in the GOP field, and how he handles his "first appearance on the hot seat" could determine his electoral hopes, says Maggie Haberman at Politico. He'll face attacks from Romney and hard-hitting questions on his socially conservative views from moderator John King. In past debates, "Santorum has proven how hard he can hit back," and he could win over Wednesday's GOP crowd by attacking King and the media as anti-conservative. "Umbrage at the moderator worked for Newt," says The Daily Beast's Kurtz. Let's see if Santorum can pull off the same stunt.

SEE MORE: Is Rick Santorum invulnerable to Mitt Romney's negative attacks?

2. Mitt will go after his new top rival
Romney needs to stop Santorum's surge, and take him down a peg, says Alan Schroeder at The Huffington Post. By highlighting Santorum's broadly unpopular views on hot-button social issues, Mitt can make voters see his rival as "a pious village elder of 17th century Salem in his tall Puritan hat and black robes." But more than that, says Politico's Haberman, Romney needs to "demonstrate some sense of passion, and an ability to connect with the working class." The problem: The more passionate Romney gets, "the more hollow and phony he sounds," says Robert Robb at The Arizona Republic. "Romney probably has no choice but to systematically dismantle Santorum the way he dismantled Newt Gingrich."

3. Newt will try to recapture his debate magic
"Debates are usually terra firma for Gingrich, who has an instinct for the jugular and a way of channeling the anger and frustration of the Republican right," says Candy Crowley at CNN. But that fiery Newt was AWOL during the last two debates. Now, "Gingrich needs Santorum to collapse under the weight of expectations for a frontrunner." Clearly, political scientist Audrey Haynes tells The Arizona Republic, Newt "has the most to lose" Wednesday night, "because if he does not come back now, his momentum and gravitas are gone for good."

SEE MORE: What will the GOP do if Mitt Romney implodes?

4. Ron Paul will just be Ron Paul
Unlike his rivals, "Paul has not chosen to make the debates his proving grounds this cycle," says Politico's Haberman. The Texan is likely to continue his attacks on Santorum over his Bush-era fiscal record, lending an assist to Paul's friend Romney. And remember, Paul has already done much to "increase the market share of libertarian views in Republican politics," says The Arizona Republic's Robb. On Wednesday, he should "advocate his non-interventionism" in an attempt to woo those independents and the "reasonably large swath of Republican voters" who don't like "the bellicosity of Republican political leaders on foreign policy."

5. John King will likely play some local wild cards
Immigration will "inevitably" come up as a local Arizona issue, says Robb. And it's hard to see how CNN can resist asking about "Republican rising star and border-security hawk" Paul Babeu, the Pinal County sheriff who, until Saturday, served as Romney's Arizona campaign co-chairman, says Dan Nowicki at The Arizona Republic. After a local paper accused Babeu of threatening a Mexican ex-boyfriend with deportation — he denies misconduct — the sheriff came out as gay and quit the Romney campaign. "Romney can consider himself lucky if Babeu's name doesn't come up at the forum."

SEE MORE: Brokered conventions: A guide to political pundits' dream scenario

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter

View the original article here

Wednesday's season finale of American Political Gladiators

My, how the time has flown. On Wednesday night, the Republican candidates for president will meet for the 20th time in this cycle, a stretch that started on May 5, 2011 in Greenville, S.C. It may surprise people to recall that only two of the current four candidates participated in that event: Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Of the other three participants: Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain exited the race long before the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses, and Gary Johnson never seriously contended. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich joined the debate club in June at the second official debate, and a cast of also-rans came and went between debate #1 and debate #20. Even the numbering sequence is open to, er, debate. No one would count the Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between Gingrich and Cain, although it may have been one of the most informative of the series. Should we count Mike Huckabee's well-regarded forums in which he questioned each candidate individually? If so, Wednesday's is the 22nd debate, not the 20th. And Sen. Jim DeMint's "Palmetto Freedom Forum" missed Santorum, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman, but did include three of the four contenders on Survivor: Republican Island. Nevertheless, in official debate apocrypha, it remains a non-sanctioned event.

SEE MORE: The 'old, white' voters picking the GOP nominee: By the numbers

The only game changers in tonight's debate will come on perceived gaffes and facial expressions rather than actual policy differences and defense of value systems.

The 20 debates may seem unprecedented, but this cycle actually lags behind 2008. From the May 3, 2007 debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley to the final Groundhog Day debate (which also included Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) in New York in 2008, Republicans held 21 presidential nomination debates. That paled in comparison to the number of debates held by Democrats in the same cycle, 26 in all. The final five debates featured only Obama and Clinton, excluding the joint GOP-Democrat debate in New York.

SEE MORE: Will the culture war shape the 2012 race?

This cycle, after all of this debate, voters must have gotten to know these four GOP candidates rather intimately... right? Is that not why the political parties and the media stage these events? We know that the debates drive candidate support. Two candidates can relate their surges in the polls directly to debate moments. Herman Cain caught his updraft in late September when he gave a powerful testimony on his personal opposition to ObamaCare, the issue that fired up the Tea Party. Gingrich soared after scolding CBS moderator Scott Pelley on the rules of war in November, and then again in South Carolina when Gingrich turned the tables on CNN's John King and lambasted him for asking about a story involving Newt's (second) ex-wife. One candidate dissipated his support in the debates, too; Rick Perry had been expected to swamp the field on his record of creating jobs in Texas and ended up in fifth place in Iowa and out of the race by South Carolina, thanks to a series of debate gaffes and stumbles.

But did we really learn anything about these candidates outside of their ability to debate? What did we learn, other than who could attack the media and who had trouble answering questions in a game-show format? Every memorable moment from the debates came from process questions and gotcha politics, with the exception of Cain's answer on ObamaCare. The media reporting on the debates focused on everything except policy, in large part because the format doesn't allow for substantial discussion on complicated policy areas. The four survivors of the debate process succeeded not because of the debates, but either in spite of or regardless of them.

SEE MORE: 5 ways CPAC could affect the 2012 race

Thankfully, the string of debates appears to have come to a close. Late last week, Romney and Paul pulled out of a scheduled pre-Super Tuesday CNN debate in Georgia, and Santorum quickly followed suit. Gingrich complained bitterly about the cancellation, saying his competitors were "afraid to debate Newt Gingrich." Perhaps the better word is tired. MSNBC has also canceled the March 5 debate that was to have taken place at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, where the series began. The only other debate still left on the schedule is in Portland, Ore., on March 19. But none of the candidates have committed to that event, and at this point, it seems very doubtful that anyone will.

SEE MORE: The 'disturbing' rise of super PACs: By the numbers

That means Wednesday's debate is perhaps the last time we will see the candidates on stage together in this primary cycle. Can we expect that this event will be any more meaningful than the 19 game shows that preceded it? Probably not, but it could be important for Gingrich and Santorum. John King gets the nod again as moderator for CNN, a curious decision after King's performance in the debates overall and especially since this might be the final opportunity to have Wolf Blitzer run the show. If Gingrich can rekindle the embers of his campaign with another attack on the media — especially one that produces a fumbling response, like King's in South Carolina, rather than the far more effective riposte Blitzer gave Gingrich in Florida — he could perhaps generate a third surge among conservatives.

For Santorum, his momentum makes him the biggest target in the debate. CNN will no doubt open a host of social-conservative issues and force Santorum to talk about contraception and Satan all night long. If he falls into that trap, his momentum will dissipate quickly. If he can turn the tables on King and force the conversation back to religious and economic liberty, Santorum will ease fears that he is too distracting to beat Obama on the economy. 

SEE MORE: The 'most volatile race in history': Why GOP voters can't make up their minds

In the end, though, this debate will probably produce nothing more than a final round of gotcha moments and a lot of talk about negative ads from other candidates in the field. The only game changers will come on perceived gaffes and facial expressions rather than actual policy differences and defense of value systems. After 20 of these debates, that will sound like an appropriate finale to American Political Gladiators, which has all of the political substance of the original, with none of the costumes or suspense.

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter

View the original article here