Alan Schroeder

Can it really be the end of the line for the 2012 Republican debates, just as the presidential primary season kicks into its final, crucial months? A long-scheduled March 19 joint appearance in Oregon now appears unlikely to materialize, and no further debates loom on the horizon. Yet...

Scorpions in a bottle, or comrades in arms? The GOP presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona, was really two separate events: a first half in which the candidates spat venom at each other, and a second half in which they agreed on most everything -- all except contrarian Ron Paul. The...

After nearly a month-long hiatus, the reality television series known as the GOP presidential primary debates returns to the small screen on Wednesday, February 22nd. The cast of regulars, reduced to a final four, will step back onto the stage against a vastly altered political backdrop. As the players reassemble...

Saturday night and Sunday morning. Two back-to-back Republican presidential debates featuring the same cast, the same issues, the same New Hampshire setting, and the same basic format. Yet despite a separation of only 10 hours, the events felt as different as night and day.

Saturday's debate on ABC was largely...

The official name of CNN's candidate forum at Constitution Hall in Washington was "The Republican National Security Debate." More accurately, it should have been called the "Republican Think Tank Debate," because the questions came almost entirely from representatives of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, which co-sponsored the...

Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner where only your least simpatico, most judgmental relatives show up, where the conversation veers between religious proselytizing and tearful mawkishness, where no alcohol is drunk and no food served, and where even the pumpkins decorating the tabletop are made of plastic. This largely sums up the...

Two Republican debates within four days. The first, held Wednesday in Michigan, was supposed to be about economic issues and ended up being about Rick Perry's brain freeze. The second, held Saturday in South Carolina, was supposed to be about international affairs and ended up being about... international affairs.

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Here's a strategy that Herman Cain might want to consider: hire a Republican debate audience to travel with him wherever he goes as a means of warding off uncomfortable inquiries from the press. At the CNBC debate in Rochester, Michigan, Cain found himself in uber-friendly territory, surrounded by a force...

Let's put this in terms that Rick Perry can understand: When you show up for the rodeo, you've got to ride the bull.

The Texas governor has indicated that he may opt out of some future Republican primary debates, complaining that the formats are too restrictive to...

It took the heat of Las Vegas to make Mitt Romney lose his cool. Finally showing his human side -- too vividly perhaps -- the normally unflappable Romney displayed a testiness in the latest Republican debate that did not flatter him. This is a side of Mitt Romney that has...

Heading into the Republican debate at Dartmouth College, several key storylines had taken root. For Rick Perry, it was a need to counteract his ineptitude in previous debates. For Herman Cain, it was an opportunity to capitalize on recent gains in the polls. For Mitt Romney, it was sustaining the...

Over the course of their three debates together, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney have developed a Punch and Judy routine that is starting to feel like a long-running sitcom. The two men take turns beating each other up for awhile, retreat to their corners long enough to let the other...

At the CNN-Tea Party Debate in Tampa, Mitt Romney gave one of the strongest performances of his political career in front of a crowd that did not seem to care. From the standpoint of audience approval, with only a few exceptions, this was Rick Perry's night. Watching this man play...

The presidential debate debut of Texas Governor Rick Perry at the Ronald Reagan Library was neither a triumph nor a disaster, leaving the score at the end of the night essentially unchanged.

When the debate began, Perry seemed nervous, a figure far more subdued than the rootin-tootin cowboy who munched...

Shortly after Labor Day the Republican presidential contenders will meet for a series of high-profile debates that start Wednesday, September 7, at the Reagan Library in California.

Pre-debate media buzz centers on Texas Governor Rick Perry, the latest and therefore most newsworthy candidate in the group, as he...

So much for Minnesota Nice. The headline to emerge from the Republicans' first Iowa debate is the bitter scrap between the two Minnesotans standing side by side onstage, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty. Chris Wallace of Fox News shamelessly goaded these rivals into a fight, and fight...

The Republican Twitter debate had been touted in advance as something revolutionary. Revolutionary is too strong a word for what actually happened--or for any format that allows the candidates to spout their talking points unchallenged. But if not exactly groundbreaking, history's first-ever Twitter presidential debate proved to...

Politics and comedy are a combustible mix, as a minor dust-up in New Orleans this past weekend reminds us. On Saturday a Barack Obama impersonator named Reggie Brown got yanked offstage at the Republican Leadership Conference after the hosts who invited him decided they had had enough....

This early in the season, a presidential primary debate is essentially about winning the battle of the buzz. On a crowded stage, the objective is to separate oneself in a way that captures media attention and drives post-debate conversation. The contender who best accomplished that in Monday's CNN New Hampshire...

If the purpose of Fox News is to promote Republicans, the opening debate of campaign 2012 did precious little to advance the cause. The event was like a party that all the cool kids boycotted, leaving only an oddball assortment of nerds to whip up their own brand of fun....