Three big dynamics are likely to drive the Florida primary race between now and next the election next Tuesday.
The biggest and most interesting is the growing effort by what we think of as the GOP establishment to knock Newt down hard enough in Florida that he can’t get up off the canvas. Bob Dole’s seering attack on Newt today and Larry Kudlow’s very aggressive interview with Newt tonight on CNBC are the latest examples of the Stop Newt movement. The second dynamic is the $5 million of pro-Newt money from the Adelsons. Does it go toward a ferocious last-minute attack on Mitt? Signs point to yes. The final driving force is tonight’s debate, in a primary season where the debates — nearly 20 of them now — have had sometimes outsize influence.
The debate starts at 8 p.m. ET. You can follow the debate here in the Editors Blog and on TPM Livewire.
8:11 PM: When’s the fighting start?
8:17 PM: Really good answer there.
8:18 PM: Mittdignation!
8:19 PM: Is Newt actually managing to use logic and understatement this time? That’s total newtjitsu.
8:22 PM: Okay, this may be a problem for Mitt. He just said he hadn’t seen this ad about Gingrich allegedly attacking the Spanish language and doubted it was his. (Here’s the ad.) Well, it’s his ad and actually have the ‘I approve this message’ tag at the end.
Here’s the last time Mitt Romney denied having seen an ad at the center of the campaign debate. That time it was from a Super Pac working on his behalf.
8:53 PM: I think this debate is a bigger mess than any of the previous ones.
8:56 PM: Newt started off strong but this extended digression on space and moon states. Just not happening.
8:59 PM: When I was a little kid I used to watch those great Ali fights when you had these two heavyweights exhausted in the late rounds. Got sloppy. Messy. About like this debate.
9:01 PM: Newt started pretty strong. And then Mitt got in that pretty embarrassing spot where he said he hadn’t seen one of his own ads and denied it even being his ad. A classic Mitt moment. But since then Newt’s just been all over the place and he’s given Mitt all sorts of opportunities to come in and be the grown up. Not good for Newt.
9:04 PM: Mitt: I’d fire anyone who bought me a moon base.
A lot of these debates have been pretty bad. But this strikes me as the most disjointed debate I think I’ve ever seen. The moderation is poor. The candidates seem to be the campaign equivalent of punch drunk. What do you think?
9:13 PM: It’s not worth getting angry about? What did that even mean?
9:13 PM: Dead to rights. It’s amazing that it took 19 debates but Santorum finally got Romney dead to rights on his plan being more or less identical to Obama’s.