June 14, 2011 12:49 AM UTC

Will Tonight's Debate Make Romney? Or Break Him?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Our friends at the Washington Post report, a lot riding on tonight’s GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire–at the top of that list, the true disposition of “frontrunner” Mitt Romney:

His moment is here again, in the state where last time the dream unraveled. Monday night, on a stage in Manchester, Mitt Romney will compete in New Hampshire’s opening debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, his first major test since he lost the 2008 Republican nomination to John McCain.

Now, as at various points four years ago, Romney leads big against GOP rivals in the New Hampshire polls. Now, as then, he is better financed than any foe. Some things don’t change: His black hair and preternaturally youthful appearance, even at 64. His ability to put together a phone bank and raise $10 million in a single day. His emphasis on his venture capital background and how he can conceptualize job creation in the way mere politicians can’t.

But otherwise, everything is different now. To his New Hampshire skeptics, he looks like the most vulnerable of front-runners, despite a Washington Post-ABC News poll that says he is running even with President Obama. This time the doubters believe he is already bleeding, wounded by years of opponents’ charges that his career has been defined by expedient flip-flops. They suspect his condition has worsened in the wake of escalating attacks over something he refuses to renounce, a Massachusetts health-care plan he signed into law as that state’s governor…

Romney is the favorite of Colorado Republicans as well, though trailed by such noncontenders as Michele Bachmann and Herman “The Hermanator” Cain–it seems to us that our local Republicans have yet to get serious about this race, and Cain won’t rank this well for long. Tonight’s debate does represent a golden opportunity for another potentially viable GOP candidate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, to start blowing holes in Romney’s tepid frontrunner status. Of the seven Republican candidates in attendance tonight, Pawlenty and Romney are the only two with something remotely like a chance at this nomination. Poll follows.

Though let’s be honest, “viability” is not why Herman Cain is fun at parties.

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