correspondent jim acosta is inside the debate hall here at the wynn hotel. walk us through the debate setup. reporter: you got it, wolf. and to continue the gambling parlance you would say, hillary clinton is holding the best cards right now if you re looking at the poll numbers. that explains why. i ll show you what the debate stage looks like right now. she has the center position. as you can see, those aren t the candidates up on the stage. those are some fill-ins standing at those podiums as our cnn crews go through the motions of getting this debate stage ready for tuesday night. you can see it from my right to left, lincoln chafee on the end, martin o malley, the former governor of maryland, hthen hillary clinton is in the center position, the front-runner, then to her right, bernie sanders, the self-described socialist. he s been capturing the imagination of the democratic party. he s doing very well and former virginia senator, jim webb will be on the other end.
he ll be right with us to the terrible crash that killed their friend dan wheldon. later my compelling interview with kelsey grammer who really does open up in a way i ve never seen before. but for now jon huntsman joins me from new hampshire. he says he ll stay there rather than joining all the fun in las vegas. what s this all about? why are you avoiding the lure of sin city? well, piers, thank you for having me on. let me just say that we have a very, very important issue playing out here, and that s the viability of the new hampshire primary. why is that important? because the primary here, the first in the nation, is the window through which the american public begin to understand the candidates, who they are, what they stand for and their vision for a better america. and you begin to jeopardize that process by other states like nevada most recently leapfrogging in the process, making new hampshire virtually irrelevant as you move it forward. i say that is totally nons