Live Blog: The CNN Tea Party Republican Debate

Jeeze, could things get any worse? Republican presidential candidates, the Tea Party, and Wolf Blitzer as moderator. If you can stand it, please tune in or live stream the debate and join us to document the atrocities.

Rick Perry has been trying to walk back his claims that Social Security is a “ponzi scheme” and a “failure.” Mitt Romney will probably be on the offensive about that. As the The Caucus blog points out,

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, warned during a debate last week that the Republican Party should nominate someone “who isn’t committed to abolishing Social Security, but who is committed to saving Social Security.”

And Mr. Romney has hardly let up since. In a biting e-mail last week titled “Rick Perry: Reckless, Wrong on Social Security,” Mr. Romney’s campaign alleged that Mr. Perry “believes Social Security should not exist.”

Over the weekend, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota joined in, chiding Mr. Perry — without naming him directly — for using rhetoric about Social Security that scares seniors.

“That’s wrong for any candidate to make senior citizens believe that they should be nervous about something they have come to count on,” Mrs. Bachmann said in a radio interview in Iowa.

Of course both Romney and Bachmann have said unkind things about Social Security in the past, so they might have to answer for that.

At the Guardian, Richard Adams says that tonight is Michele Bachmann’s last chance to shine, after she was pretty much ignored at the Reagan Library debate last week.

With the Republican presidential contest rapidly devolving into a two-way race between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, Monday night’s GOP debate in Tampa may represent Michele Bachmann’s last chance to keep up with the front-runners.

The latest opinion polls in the Republican presidential nomination contest make bitter reading for Bachmann and her supporters: since the entry of Perry, the Texas governor, her support has melted away like a popsicle on a barbeque.

The fire-breathing Tea Party favourite had threatened to up-end the nomination battle with her entry back in June. But she has wilted over summer and her evanescent campaign has seen its support collapse, even among the trenchant social conservatives that Bachmann was relying on.

Tonight should be fertile ground for Bachmann: the debate is co-hosted by the Tea Party Express group and is being billed as “the Tea Party debate” by CNN.

At CNN, Paul Steinhauser offers Five things to watch for in CNN/Tea Party Republican debate, and at the Christian Science Monitor Peter Grier offers three things we might see at tea party event tonight

Personally, I plan to watch the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football, but I’ll check in periodically to see what’s happening. I’m hoping someone will watch this debate so I don’t have to!