Eight Republican presidential candidates will debate on September 7 at the famed Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is currently at the front in many national polls, will join Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Ron Paul on stage.
NBC News and POLITICO will moderate the debate, and it will be co-hosted by NBC Nighlty News anchor Brian Williams and POLITICO's editor-in-chief John Harris.
The debate will be significant because it is Perry's debut on the national debating stage. Even more so, it is first debate in which someone other than Romney will most likely be the leader in the polls.
This dynamic can impact debate strategy in a number of ways.
Will Perry be above the fray and take a page out of Romney's playbook or will the combative Texan go straight after Romney?
Will Romney act like an underdog and make it seem as if he is punching up in a weight class to Perry?
For Ron Paul, who has been at a stable 10-15 percent in the polls, how will he break out? Can he put together a crisp debating performance that highlights the areas where Republicans have moved toward his views and not come across as too professorial and absent-minded?
Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain will come into the debate sharing a similar set of debate experiences. Both splashed onto the national scene during a debate. For Cain, it was in South Carolina. For Bachmann, it was in New Hampshire. But both candidates have not been able to maintain the initial burts of momentum they received from their respective debates due to a mixture of gaffes and staffing questions though Bachmann did win the Ames Straw Poll, which, in the end, seems to not have given her a bounce in the polls.
Newt Gingrich, fresh off his last stellar debate performance, must kick his campaign into gear. He said his campaign would be like Walmart in terms of being innovative. September seems like the time when he should be rolling out his campaign innovations.
And will Jon Huntsman find his groove? Can he position himself as a moderate Republican on social issues who is conservative on fiscal issues and staunchly so on life in a convincing way or has the mainstream media's infatuation with his candidacy so turned off conservatives that such as task remains nearly impossible?
And finally, the debate will be held four days after Sarah Palin's Tea Party speech in Indianola Iowa on September 3 and two days after Jim DeMint's presidential forum in South Carolina on September 5.
If news is made during either of those events, it will influence the Reagan Library debate.
