manchester tonight. cnn political editor paul steinhauser is there and so is cnn s political reporter shannon travis. good to see both of you. you look very happy. i know you ve been working your butts off, but you look lively. paul, let s start with you. there is a debate tonight, another tomorrow. why are they so important? well, listen, don. we ve seen the whole cycle of debates, they ve been so outsized in importance like we ve never seen before. the debates make and break candidates t. they broke rick perry. they ve broken herman cain and some others. well, that could happen again tonight. the other thing, don, we haven t had a debate there have been 13, but we haven t had one in almost a month. it has been a while and a lot has change. we lost michelle balk p man. rick santorum used to be off to the side. now he ll be in the middle. mitt romney is used to the scrutiny. we ll see if santorum is used to it. one more thing, when i stand next to shannon travis i make him
because he mentioned rick santorum and he has said during the debates, you know, us people here on the send we don t get as many questions, usually the folks in the middle, like mitt romney who is in a very strong position, shannon. and basically unless he makes a gaffe, there s a battle for second place and that is about it. that is a key point. paul talked a lot about rick santorum, how he hasn t been tested that much because to be honest with you, not a lot of people, especially in the media, have paid much attention to rick santorum. that all changes now. in terms of the race for second place, you ve got rick santorum, almost tied with mitt romney in the iowa caulk u.s.s. but you can best believe rick santorum is going to come out hard against mitt romney tonight. he s already been doing it on the campaign trail. as far as the other people who want that second place, ron paul