animals set loose in ohio lead tog a night of terror that ended with many of them shot. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. captions by vitac www.vitac.com it s a whole different contest than it was only 24 hours ago and now, the fight for the republican presidential nomination includes a brutal, nasty battle between mitt romney and rick perry. the shift happened last night on television at the cnn western republican debate in las vegas and it did get seriously ugly. jim acosta has more. wolf, the cnn debate here in las vegas may have marked a turning point in the campaign. it was nasty, it was personal and it might be a sign of things to come. i m speaking. the newspaper it s time for you to tell the truth. you get 30 second. the way the rules work is that i get 60 seconds but the american people want the truth. it was a wild west shoot outand at times, it felt like perry s last stand with an urgent strategy to take down mitt romney. bec
we re live on the las vegas strip where in just four hours, the republican hopefuls will face off in a cnn western presidential debate. tonight, herman cain is the candidate to beat. since the last debate one week ago in new hampshire, herman cain has continued to rise in the polls and is now the front-runner for the republican presidential nomination. he is joining me now. he s here in the situation room. we re in las vegas. mr. cain, thanks very much for coming in. how does that feel to be called the front-runner running for the nomination? the way it feels is that you got this big bull s eye on your back so that keeps gets bigger. it feels great, but as you know, the challenge is how do we continue that momentum and we believe we know how to do it. they re all going to come after you tonight. i m ready. have you been practicing? what are you doing? what i always do. in other words, i make sure i know where i stand on all the solutions i m putting on the table.
but what s going to prevent terrorists from buying and using them? i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. captions by vitac www.vitac.com he entered the race at the top of the polls, but rick perry has been watching his numbers slide and slide. his momentum rather slow. now, with a closely watched speech, the texas governor is trying to reverse his declining campaign fortunes. jim acosta is joining us now. he delivered what his campaign described as a major speech today. that s right. the speech was called the energizing american jobs and security speech, wolf, but it was also designed to energize his campaign. looking to jump-start a campaign that s been stalled for weeks, rick perry laid out a texas-sized energy plan that the governor claims will create more than a million jobs. america s the saudi arabia of code. if elected president, perry says he ll push for new coal mining, oil exploration. perry would even expand production to the gulf of mexico