a quick handshake, good luck, as you would say, be strong. it's a very important night, a consequential night for the country. let's show you that live picture inside the haul. eight republicans for president engaging in this debate. in recent days, a crackling debate about the 2012 presidential campaign. not only, and you'll hear it all night long, taking aim at president obama and his agenda, but we have playing out a fierce and an increasingly intense battle for the leadership, the heart and soul, the policy agenda and the philosophical approach of the republican party. watch these eight candidates tonight. we know the texas governor rick perry has emerged quickly as the front-runner. the massachusetts governor, the former governor of massachusetts, mitt romney, his lead challenger, number two. and then there's a break between the other candidates. if there is one other candidate who perhaps has the most to prove tonight, it is the minnesota congresswoman, michele bachmann. the tea party favorite herself, someone who rose in the polls after a cnn debate back in june, but she has struggled as of late, as she has stumbled in the polls, with mostly in part because of the entrance of governor perry. a 90-minute debate. wolf blitzer will moderate it inside. social security is a big issue, taxes is a big issue. it will be interesting to see if more national security issues come up, given the day we have this debate. just after the country paused to remember and reflect ten years since the september 11th, 2001, attacks. let's set the stage and stakes tonight with two people who are following this race closely and perhaps have a little different perspective of what the republican party needs in its leadership at this urgent moment for the party and for the country. our cnn political contributor and consultant alex castellanos is with us, and also billy tucker. billy, since this is a tea party debate, the tea party shot like a rocket on to the scene in 2010. hugely helpful, if not usually responsible for the republicans taking back the congress. when you look at these eight candidates tonight, and you're looking for a leader, for the republican party, an embrace of the tea party movement, what is your defining question? >> my defining question is, how are they going to lead? we want to know how they're going to govern and we want to know if they are going to be strong leaders. we need a courageous leader right now. >> a courageous leader right now. and you say that in the context of debating president obama or do you say that in the context of your disappointments with the last republican president, especially at the end, george w. bush? >> we say that based on the fact that we need a courageous leader. the tea party is looking for courageous leaders to do the right things. that means in the white house and congress and in the senate. so it's really important that leadership shows up tonight. >> alex castellanos, i want to set the stage for our viewers, just looking at our latest poll, and as we go through these poll numbers, first, let me pause, that's the former utah governor, governor huntsman and his wife, arriving here tonight. governor huntsman has had a hard time breaking through. he says civility and a polite tone should be important in this campaign. he was a few months ago the public gas tor to china. as you watch him enter his trailer with an hour to prepare for this debate here, one of the key issues he'll stress tonight, we are told, is when he was the governor of utah, it was creating jobs. we're also told governor huntsman will join the fight tonight in contrasting governor perry's views on social security with others' views. let's get back to where we stand. right now the republicans' kh choice for a nominee, without sarah palin in the race, perry, 32%, romney, 21%, ron paul, 13%, michele bachmann down at 7, gingrich at 7, herman cain, john huntsman, and rick santorum further down in the race. the crackling debate in recent days has been about social security. and governor perry is trying to clarify, the polite term i'll use, he wrote an op-ed in "usa today" where he used the term "ponzi scheme" in a debate last week with about the finances of social security. he wrote today, "for too long politicians have been afraid to speak honestly about social security. we must have the guts to talk about its financial condition if we are to fix social security and make it financially viable for generations to come." how important is it that he get this right? recalibrate the wording and the message to audiences? number one, the republican primary electorate. number two, if he's the nominee, he's got to sell it in the general. >> well, john, it's important enough that he wrote an editorial in "usa today." it's big time. you launch your campaign, you don't want the missile to hit grandma's house. and that's a little bit what perry did. it clouded his coming out party. it hasn't hurt him. i mean, he's shot to 30% in the polls. he's going to do what every republican on that stage does. assume the position that, yes, social security is a ponzi scheme, but i'm the only guy you can trust to tell the truth about, and therefore, the only guy you can trust to fix it. he'll say that tonight. >> but here's the question, he says in "usa today," and you can expect him to say it passionately tonight, we need to fix it, make it financially viable for generations to come. that's what he says now. if you read his book, these are his words, if you read his book "fed up," he's talking about social security and he says about it, "and there stands a crumbling monument to the failure of the new deal. in stark contrast to the mythical notion of salvation to which it has wrongly been attached for too long, at the expense of respect for the constitution and limited government." he is on the record in his own book of saying the founding fathers never would have done this. social security, perhaps, is unconstitutional. you're nodding your head. we were at lunch today with 100 or so tea party members in the room. they agree with that. >> that's right. >> so here's the challenge. if he says that, if he says that, you want him to say that, don't you? >> we do want him to say that. that's courageous, isn't it? >> if he wins the state of florida in a general election, if he said, if he said, if i were there, i wouldn't have voted for it, that's different from saying, i think it should be abolished. >> it needs to be reformed. it's here now. it's just like everything else that happens when government gets involved in policies they shouldn't be involved in, like obama care. this is the same thing. we're all talks about obama care, obama care. 20 years from now, we're going to say, why did we do that? this is a mess. it's broken. this is the exact same thing. >> you're a guy who cuts ads. if governor perry is the nominee of the republican party, and one of the reasons people in our poll, republican voters have elevated him is they believe he is the most electable candidate. they believe he is the strongest candidate to go up against president obama, as a consultant. if you were cutting ads for the democrats, not republicans, does that quote, is that quote potentially a disqualifying, good-bye, florida, good-bye, pennsylvania, good-bye, iowa, good-bye, arizona, good-bye states with significant senior populations? >> if rick perry is the nominee, you can count on seeing that quote in an ad. and the other night in a debate, when he came out of the box, rick perry implied if he could go back 70 years and undo it, he would. those are the issues he's going to have to deal with. and what it does is it takes a spotlight off of the big advantage republicans have running against barack obama, which is the economy and jobs and fixing washington. obama's made washington bigger. their economy work. he hasn't made yours work. and we need to be talking about that as republicans, not social security. >> right. >> i think a candidate, obviously, perry and romney are the top tier at the moment. a candidate with a lot at stake tonight is congresswoman michele bachmann, who came out of the cnn debate in new hampshire in june with a lot of momentum. she has struggled of late. look at this just over the months. back in may, she was at 9% among registered republicans. august, a little bit later, 12%. she was shooting up right there. now she's back down to 7%. she is a favorite of a lot of tea party people. her numbers are going down, why? she's made mistakes in the debate, but as she debates more, people are saying, maybe she isn't a president. >> she hasn't made mistakes. she's been who michele bachmann is. i think it's because we have new people in the race and it's changing the dynamics a little bit. but michelle's been has been michelle. so she hasn't changed at all. we'll see what happens. i don't think that they're all here. >> rick perry upoccupies the sa space with tea party voters as michele bachmann does, but he's a successful governor in a large state with more stature and credibility. so he's just taken the wind out of her sails. she's going to knock rick perry out tonight. all these candidates are going to nip at his heels. but it will take a month or two to vet rick perry. these candidates have to look not so short-term tonight. they have to present a candidate tonight who could be president of the united states. they need to show somebody that they could sit in that big chair in the oval office and actually lead the free world. so they've got to be careful about getting too small tonight. >> is this the feel, these eight candidates tonight, we're going to talk a lot more in the hour ahead about the policy clashes and the like. is this the field? these eight candidates at this luncheon today when i was asking the tea party voters what they think about the field win heard a few sarah runs in the back of the room. do you think where you have the field right now and we're picking from these eight or are we going to get somebody else, possibly governor palin? >> i think the field's here, you know. i would be surprised if sarah did win -- i mean, did run. but there are still a lot of tea party people out there that think she will, so -- >> i can't imagine that the field's going to change. i think sarah palin loves her country, wants to defeat this president. i think she understands, like a lot of republicans do, she may not be the best candidate to do it. but we've seen the world turn on a dime in a day, so who knows? >> alex and billie, appreciate your insights. the cnn tea party republican presidential debate now less than an hour away. in the hour beforehand, though, we'll have an exclusive conversation with the vice president, joe biden, just moments away, his thoughts on the republican race and the republican field. and up next, another exclusive conversation with that man, the louisiana governor bobby jindal. just today, he announced his endorsement of this race. where does governor jindal see the republican party going, that's next. 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[ tires screech ] [ crying ] [ applause ] [ laughs ] [ tires screech ] [ male announcer ] your life will have to flash by even faster. autodrive brakes on the cadillac srx activate after rain is detected to help improve braking performance. we don't just make luxury cars. we make cadillacs. we're live tonight at the florida state fairgrounds in tampa, we're about 45 minutes away from a cnn tea party republican presidential debate. eight candidates will be on that stage, you see it live right there, making their case, that they are the best choice to lead the republican party in the 2012 campaign against democratic president barack obama. one governor we thought might be a candidate, then he decided, no, he would stay in his state is the louisiana governor, bobby jindal. to you, governor, welcome, you decided rick perry, your neighboring governor, you believe among those eight candidates we're going to the see tonight, he's the best nominee and the best president, why? >> that's exactly right. thank you for having me. you look at the record of what he's done in texas. this election, i believe, is about the jobs, about the economy. we've got a president, we've got president obama who believes we're going to tax, borrow, spend our way into prosperity. rick perry understands, he has held that line on taxes, he has cut regulations. texas in the last few years has been responsible for almost half of the new jobs created in america. you've seen under governor perry's leadership, they've cut spending. first governor in decades to actually cut general revenue spending in texas. he understands, we can't borrow away -- he understands the seriousness of the $14 trillion debt. one fundamental lesson that apparently president obama hasn't learned is that government doesn't create jobs. when government spends money, it costs taxpayers money. governor rick perry understands that the when private sector creates jobs, that's good for the american taxpayers. >> you understand social security, often considered the third rail of american politics. you watched the debate play out in recent days. you just heard the conversation we had in the last segment about this. is governor perry vulnerable, especially to a general election audience for having the view that in his social security is essentially unconstitutional. it shouldn't be there. >> look, it will be demagogued, it will be attacked, but let's be clear. look at social security today. certainly, when you look at it last year, for the first time since the early 1980s, they paid more than they took out. by the time i reach retirement age, the trust fund will be gone. young people are more likely to believe in ufos than that social security would be there for him. let's protect it for those that are retiring or about to retire, but let's fix it for the younger generations. anytime anybody has the courage to say this, they're going to get attacked. the safe thing to do would be to duck and avoid it. he hasn't done that, he's showed real leadership. he wants to deliver real jobs for americans. that's why i think he's the best candidate to be president. voters want candidates that are going to be honest with them, leaders that are going to tell themse them the truth, not just hearing what we want to hear. i applaud him for having the courage to lead and be honest. if we don't make serious changes, social security will not be there for our children and grandchildren. >> he has skyrocketed to the top of the american field. this is his second debate. you know you can get an early lead in a race and watch it go away. the woman who was making a lot of strides in the race who has stole some in part because of governor perry's entrance is the minnesota congresswoman, michele bachma bachmann. i was asking her last week if she was worried, if she thought she was going to spurt ntter no that governor perry had taken a lot of her momentum. listen to this. >> don't forget in the last election cycle, fred thompson jumped in late in the race. he was polling at about 31%. rudy giuliani jumped in late. he was polling at about 35%. this isn't unusual. campaigns aren't settled just in a day. this is a marathon and we're very pleased. and by the way, with our campaign, our campaign is doing very well. >> that's a fair historical point, if you look at the -- if we go back and look here, september 2007, rudy giuliani leading the republican field with 28%. fred thompson, 27%. john mccain, the ultimate nominee, in third place at that time. might she have a point? might governor perry be a flash in the pan? >> if you go back, everyone thought senator clinton was the odds-on nominee. perry has been governor for nearly 11 years of texas. during that time, you've seen per capita income has increased from last year to this year. at a time the president's offering as talk and promises, rick perry is creating jobs. for me, it's not about polls. he's not the kind of guy that sticks his finger out in the wind and sees which ways the polls are going. we elected a leadership, president obama, that gives great speeches. clearly has been overwhelmed by these economic challenges. in rick perry, a man with executive experience, been governor of a very large state with a very complex economy. has done a great job to create jobs, cut the regulations creating jobs. i think he's got lasting power not because of the polls or because of the temporary attention, but because of his track record and executive experience, that's what the american people are looking for. >> let's step back a bit. as a governor, as someone who has served in congress, a divided government, republican house of representatives, this campaign starting to gin up and get some momentum. you were here in this very town back in august. the national republican committee's summer meeting, and you were making a point, essentially trying to, shall i say, have some in your party grow some backbone. listen to your view on whether people should stand their ground or compromise. >> one of the things i have found in government, and it's just the opposite -- i know this will shock you, but it is the opposite of what the news media wants you to believe, but it is this. it pays to be stubborn. nothing, if you want to be popular with the editorial boards, nothing will make you as popular with the intelligenceya in america as compromise. we are told over and over, that's what adults do. i have found that in government, it pays to be stubborn, it pays to stick to your guns. >> pays to stick to your guns, you say. so should the house now, the republican house, stick to its guns and say no when president obama wants new infrastructure spending, for example, as part of this jobs plan. new aid to states like yours so you can keep police, firefighters, and teachers on the payrolls? should they say no? >> two things, first, the tax and spending didn't work. i think speaker boehner has said the right thing. i think the bill came over today. he said, we'll look at it piece by piece. it's not going to be all or nothing. there may be some good ideas in there. we'll take those and add our own good ideas. he asked the president and the white house to respectfully consider our ideas as well. that's what they're supposed to do. it shouldn't be an up or down vote or be all or nothing. they should take it piece by piece, do the analysis. but should they reject stimulus part two? absolutely. what i was saying there in that speech, what i was telling my fellow republicans was, it absolutely pays, and we should take a principled stand. when it comes to this debt ceiling debate, this is not the debt ceiling, it is the debt. 49 states are required to balance their budget. i also said this. we're not -- we as republicans, we shouldn't hate the president. we shouldn't question where he's from. we sho