This has been quite the week for the Republican Party. So CNBC may have scored a ratings coup by hosting last night's debate between presidential contenders. All eight candidates were back on stage – Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum – for this tenth debate.
The chosen focus was the economy, but the biggest question leading up to prime-time was how Herman Cain would handle the sexual harassment allegations that have been dogging him day in and day out since Halloween. Ipsos/Reuters polls from this week show Cain was hurt by the allegations, but has any other candidate been helped by them? Pundits say Perry’s flub – forgetting an agency he wants cut – amounted to his worst debate performance yet. Is he out of the race?
There are two more debates coming up this week – a CBS News debate at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., followed by a foreign policy debate put on by the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
WEIGH IN:
Have you had enough? Are the Republican candidates drowning in debates, as some conservative thinkers have suggested?
Guests:
Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School
Jonathan Wilcox, Republican strategist; former speech writer for Governor Pete Wilson