blog and website. johnathon is in atlanta and will cover the story for us as well. reporter: between last night s debate and this week s red state gaerthing, there was not much sleep. the candidates are addressing a multitude of issues before the conservative and republican activist. we ll not be apologieapologi and let me tell you you, if you don t have to apologize for it in new jersey, we shouldn t apologize anywhere else in america. new jersey governor chris christie rallieded the crowd on the opposition of abortion. we ll hear from jindal. and rick perry won cheers on
national committee has vast influence about the debates and only have six in total. but the key is, only four democratic debates before the iwan and new hampshire. fox debate last night. and clash of ideas. two debates and tough questions x. people mixing it up x. meanwhile, hillary clinton is going to escape for two more months and midoctober. does that really matter? it does. martin o malley is upset. he s one percent. and the front runner gets hits and newt gingrich can and others raise up. it impacts the race. and this may be protecting hillary clinton. number one; democrats are worried about hillary clinton not taking questions from the media. and also not doing debates until later because she will not get in fighting shape.
or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. visit humira.com and talk to your rheumatologist. humira. this is a body of proof! if you were watching last night s debate. you weren t alone. a whopping 24 million people watched the debate. from 9:00 p.m. eastern time to just past 11:00 p.m. eastern time fox news drew 7.9 million people. in the demo. that s what we talk about in the television business as a key metric. something that a lot of folks look at. it determines the age group of viewers. 24 million viewers watched last night debate. in total it s the highest residential primary debate in television history. the biggest telecast, broadcast in fox news channel history as well. the bar is set, jon. first debate but not the last
is responsible for this. bill: a little mystery out there, huh? all right, back to the debate last night. texas governor rick perry was hit for his views on immigration and social security and the economy. here he is on his relationship with former president and the former governor of texas, george w. bush: we had a great rapport. i talked to the president from time to time, calling his birthday, wishing him happy birthday, talked to him on a relatively regular basis. i highly respect the president, and his public service. bill: well, here is man who knows both men very well and his first reaction to the fox debate last night, karl rove good morning to you, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for president bush and fox news contributor down in austin. how you doing today? good morning. i m doing great! it was a good debate. bill: a lot of people are wondering about the strength of that relationship. you re welcome to go there if you want. but i just want it in a gener
but he s getting it from both sides. he s getting it because he s reckless on social security, but he s also getting it on immigration, on forced immunization of teenage girls. all of these issues that make him make him the target from the left and the right. rick santorum went at him really hard last night on immigration debate. saying by the way, ron paul said he hasn t been so great for the state of texas. i m from the state of texas. and to your point, john, putting out an argument. it s the same thing with social security. he says it s unconstitutional, wants to send it back to the states, that s all fine, but he needs to explain how he would do that. and he s not defending that position. he s starting to back from that. it was originally, there was something kind of, you know, gutsy about the way he was kind of all in on it. ponzi scheme, i m not backing away from it. last night he was seeming to suggest he really only wants to bring it back to the state to