By Melanie Jones: Subscribe to Melanie's RSS feed
February 22, 2012 7:18 PM EST
Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich face off Wednesday evening in Arizona for their last primary debate before Super Tuesday.
Initially, the four remaining Republican presidential candidates were scheduled to hold two more debates before March 6, when the delegates of 10 states will be for grabs. After Santorum, Paul and Romney pulled out of a debate in Georgia on March 1, however, the debate schedule was cleared until the majority of the primaries are over.
The next primaries will be in Arizona and Michigan on Tuesday, and all four candidates have a stake in winning these crucial states before the Super Tuesday rush. For Santorum, it's a question of keeping up the pace. The former Pennsylvania senator swept Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri the same month that he was revealed to be the de facto winner of the Iowa caucus in January.
But in a race where a series of candidates have emerged to challenge erstwhile frontrunner Mitt Romney, Santorum's surge could easily turn out to be as fleeting as that of Newt Gingrich or even Herman Cain before him. For Santorum to win big in Arizona and Michigan, and to sweep Super Tuesday, he needs to prove that he can do more than give lip service to social conservative ideals: he needs to prove he can handle the economic and foreign policy responsibilities of the presidency as well.
For Mitt Romney, meanwhile, this debate is his last chance to re-establish himself as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. Even after his big wins in Nevada, Florida and New Hampshire, Romney still struggles to convince American voters that he has presidential qualities beyond business know-how and general electability. To recover his lead, he will need to present a more passionate and ideologically driven persona to viewers, one that will inspire them rather than simply ask them to take his candidacy for granted.
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Ron Paul's goal is somewhat different. Arizona and Michigan aren't his immediate concerns. The libertarian congressman has made it clear that he will be focusing on collecting as many delegates as he can from the caucus states, and that means sticking to his message as clearly and as eloquently as possible. Since his rhetoric is markedly different from the other candidates already, all the occasionally long-winded candidate needs to do during the Arizona debate is stick to his points and limit his responses in order to make a good impression.
Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, needs to bring everything he can to tonight's debate. The former speaker won South Carolina, the state that has determined the GOP nominee every election year since Reagan, but has yet to make a dent in almost any other state. For Gingrich to recover all the momentum he lost after the Florida primary, he needs to abandon the backbiting tactics he's employed over the last few debates and return to the masterful debating persona he's perfected over the years, a knowledgeable, nuanced and political savvy.
The International Business Times will be live-blogging the Arizona 2012 Republican debate on this page starting at 8 p.m. EST, so be sure to refresh the page frequently. Be sure to check back afterward for post-debate analysis.
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10:02 p.m.: Santorum gets the last word: electability. "We're going to be running against a president who has the national media behind him," he argues, as well as all the money he didn't have to spend during the primary race. America needs someone who can "do a lot with a little," and run his candidacy "on a shoestring." Santorum believes he is the man for that job.
10:01 p.m.: Romney finally says that his background and skills are essential to changing America, and says he wants voters to know that he has "the passion, the skill and the commitment" to win and govern.
10:00 p.m.: Romney skirts the question at first by enumerating what he feels America needs, and King calls him on it. Romney retorts, "You get to ask the questions you want--I get to give the answers I want."
9:59 p.m.: Gingrich says the frontrunner overload is due to the fact that the American people are searching for real answers, not rhetoric. He is "someone who can get it done, not just describe it on the campaign trail."
9:58 p.m.: Ron Paul feels that the misperception lies not with the people, but with the press. "It's the perpetration of the myth by the media that I can't win!" he says.
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