CNN will be broadcasting a Republican debate Wednesday night from the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona. All four GOP candidates will be participating in this crucial shootout just six days prior to the Arizona and Michigan primaries on February 28. This will also be the final debate prior to the Super Tuesday contests on March 6 now that the March 1 debate has been canceled.
On Wednesday, Feb. 22, Republican presidential hopefuls will face-off for the final debate before a dozen states take to the polls on Super Tuesday. CNN anchor and chief national correspondent John King will moderate the two-hour debate, which will air live from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET from the Mesa Performing Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona.
King, Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett will anchor their respective programs live from Mesa on the days surrounding the CNN debate. Anderson Cooper will anchor special, post-debate coverage.
National political correspondent Jim Acosta, senior political correspondent Joe Johns and CNN Radio’s Lisa Desjardins will report from Arizona. In addition, chief political analyst Gloria Borger, senior political analyst David Gergen and CNN political contributors John Avlon, Donna Brazile, Erick Erickson, James Carville and Ari Fleischer will be on site in Arizona to provide insight and analysis across all programming. On the campaign trail covering the candidates leading up to the Arizona and Michigan primaries are reporter-at-large Peter Hamby, political reporter Shannon Travis, and political producers Rachel Streitfeld and Shawna Shepherd.
All four of the leading Republican presidential contenders will participate in Wednesday’s debate: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. In addition to questions posed to the candidates by King and Arizona Republicans in the audience, the network will solicit questions and comments submitted in real-time from CNN.com, the CNN Politics fan page on Facebook and by using the #CNNDebate hashtag on Twitter.
Gingrich has been unable to recapture any momentum this month and it appears to be due in part to the debate drought. Back in November/December/January when there was a debate nearly every 2 weeks, Gingrich was able to build on his performances and sway some voters. Similarly Ron Paul hasn't been able to build any momentum yet having not won a single contest but that probably isn't due to a lack of debates.
As it stands now, this debate will focus on Santorum and Romney since they are neck-and-neck in both Michigan and Arizona. Recent polls showed Santorum with a substantial lead in Michigan, however, it appears he may have come down off the bounce and the race is tightening again. Arizona has moved the other way for Santorum where Romney held the lead literally for years in polling, however, recent polls show a difference of only a few points.
Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this weekend to discuss the 2012 nomination and his path to rebuilding his lost momentum. Here is Gingrich's entire interview from Sunday, February 19, 2012:
Amid news reports that casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is preparing to spend another $10 million to boost Newt Gingrich’s flagging bid for the Republican nomination, the former House speaker said Sunday that Adelson was helping level the presidential race — keeping his campaign on course at a time when he was being pummeled with millions of dollars in attack ads from Mitt Romney and his allies.
"He's certainly helping balance off Romney’s 16 billionaires and he’s helping balance off Wall Street money," Gingrich told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "Sheldon Adelson is desperately worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon and he is desperately worried about the survival of Israel, and I am the strongest candidate on foreign policy and the strongest candidate on national security."
"It's a very open relationship," Gingrich said of his friendship with Adelson, who with his wife has contributed some $11 million to the independent political action committee supporting Gingrich’s effort.
Gingrich's appearance on "Fox News Sunday" came at a crossroads for his campaign. In the month since his victory in South Carolina, Gingrich's standing has slid in national and key primary state polls as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has surged into what increasingly appears to be a two-man race with Romney for the Republican nomination. Still, Gingrich insisted that he was in the race for the long haul, noting that he had survived the surges of other candidates, including Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, both of whom are no longer in the GOP race.
Gingrich will have a tough battle to climb coming up on Super Tuesday which is March 6. He's now fighting both Romney and Santorum along with the perception that he has lost whatever mojo was building into South Carolina.
Rick Santorum appeared on Face the Nation Sunday to discuss the 2012 GOP nomination and the recent controversy over President Obama's contraception mandate on insurance companies. Here is Santorum's entire interview from Sunday, February 19, 2012:
The government shouldn't make health care providers fully cover prenatal tests like amniocentesis, which can determine the possibility of Down syndrome or other fetal problems, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Sunday.
Santorum, an outspoken opponent of abortion rights, told the CBS News program "Face the Nation" on Sunday that amniocentesis "more often than not" results in abortion.
"People have the right to do it, but to have the government force people to provide it free, to me, is a bit loaded," he said.
The former Pennsylvania senator was arguing against what he called a mandate in the health care legislation passed by President Barack Obama and Democrats in 2010. He said Saturday at an appearance in Ohio that the law was intended to increase abortions and reduce overall health care costs.
The CNN GOP debate originally scheduled for March 1, 2012 has been canceled due to decisions by Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to skip the debate in favor of Super Tuesday campaigning. This left only Newt Gingrich who had previously committed to the March 1 debate and the former Speaker wasted no time blasting his rivals as "chickens."
Newt Gingrich had a message for rivals Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney at a campaign event in his native Georgia Friday: bawk bawk bawwwk.
After two people dressed in chicken suits entertained the crowd, holding a sign reading "I'm Chicken to Debate Newt," Gingrich hit his rivals for backing out of a CNN-sponsored debate that had been scheduled for March 1 but was canceled after Santorum, Romney and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said they would not attend.
"I'm going to ask them to reconsider and come to Georgia. It'll be just fine," Gingrich told an audience of about 400 gathered in an airplane hangar in Peachtree City for an evening rally. "We'll be hospitable, and frankly there's something wrong when someone tries to buy their way to the presidency."
The frequently cash-strapped Gingrich campaign has relied heavily on his solid performances in the national televised events. After the event, talking with reporters, Gingrich said, "All I can tell you is that the average Georgian and the average Ohioan is going to say, 'Let me get this straight, they're not willing to come here to debate but they want my vote?'"
As of now, there are only two scheduled remaining primary debates. On Wednesday, February 22, CNN will be holding a debate from Arizona to which all four candidates have confirmed. PBS is also still scheduled to hold a debate March 19 from Oregon but that could certainly change between now and then.
The Maine Republican Party is rebutting efforts calling for inclusion of the remaining caucus precincts that were not counted in the "official" caucus results released last Saturday, February 11. Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster says he will not release any other results to the public and claims that the results would still show Mitt Romney the winner regardless.
The Maine GOP declared the former Massachusetts Governor the narrow winner of the state's presidential caucus February 11, but Romney's 194-vote margin of victory over Texas Congressman Ron Paul is being whittled away as more results have been reported.
Moreover, the state's rural Washington County — along with a few other communities that postponed their caucuses February 11 — will hold the final caucuses Saturday, February 18 and may decide the victor of the non-binding straw poll.
But GOP Party Chairman Charlie Webster insists that he will not release updated results from the additional caucuses, even as he comes under increasing fire from his fellow Maine Republicans and national Ron Paul campaign officials. In results in the three counties that have been released to the public, Ron Paul won more votes than were reported in the official results. Webster claims that the missing votes — when all of them are counted — will favor Romney, and that he is not going to give the press access to updated results. “No one has access,” he told the Daily Caller February 15. “There will be no access. We will give it to the committee on March 10. We are not going to release them [the missing votes]. People can whine and complain and plead, but I’m not going to make them public.”
Webster admits there were clerical errors in the tally on February 11. “What I tell people is that I’m not going to fire my staff because they make clerical errors,” he told the Daily Caller. “My poor staffer is in tears, because people are harassing her.”
First and foremost, no one should be harassed over this issue or made to feel threatened due to clerical errors or the Party Chairman's decision. This isn't worth emotional or physical harm and I empathize with those feeling the wrath of overzealous, outraged Ron Paul supporters (ahem).
I think this is going to be a lingering issue for the Maine GOP moving forward. Clearly the Paul campaign, among others, will demand access to the remaining uncounted ballots to see how the caucus results actually turned out. On the other hand, this caucus is non-binding and doesn't count for anything more than bragging rights. However, it still doesn't sit well with me personally to see an "official" count include only 84% of the vote, especially given the margin of a mere 200 votes separating first and second place.
The 2012 Maine caucuses have left several questions surrounding the integrity and straightforwardness of the caucus process. While it is true that many voting precincts held caucus events around the state between February 4th through the 11th, not every precinct in the state participated in the official results and some precincts were delayed due to inclement . . . → Read More: Questions remain surrounding Maine caucus results
Results for Maine Republican Caucus (U.S. Presidential Primary)
Feb 11, 2012 (84% of precincts reporting)
Mitt Romney 2,190 39.2%
Ron Paul 1,996 35.7%
Rick Santorum 989 17.7%
Newt Gingrich 349 6.2%
Other 61 1.1%
Source: AP
Note: See this post on why the results show only 84% reporting.
Mitt Romney took 2 non-binding contests today, only one of which will lead to some delegates down the road. Maine Republicans finished a week long caucus process Saturday which culminated . . . → Read More: Romney wins Maine Caucus and CPAC Straw Poll
Maine Republicans are caucusing Saturday to determine their preference for the 2012 GOP nominee. It appears that only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are actively campaigning in Maine while Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are spending time in the upcoming primary states of Arizona and Michigan.
Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich all spoke at the 2012 CPAC conference on Friday, February 10. Here are the full videos of their remarks in the order they were delivered.
Three of the current GOP candidates will be speaking this Friday at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC. C-SPAN will be providing coverage of the event on television and all the speakers can be watched live online direct from the CPAC website. Ron Paul was asked to be the keynote speaker this . . . → Read More: GOP candidates descend on 2012 CPAC conference
