Five Things to Watch For in the G.O.P. Debate

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, asks the crowd to be seated as he receives a warm welcome during a campaign stop at Hopkinton Town Hall, in Hopkinton, N.H. Steven Senne/Associated PressMitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, during a campaign stop on Monday at Hopkinton Town Hall in Hopkinton, N.H.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Mitt Romney enters the Republican presidential debate on Tuesday as the likeliest target of questions and criticism from rivals eager to slow the building sense of momentum behind his campaign.

The dynamics of the race have shifted considerably since the last debate, just three weeks ago.

Until then, Mr. Romney largely managed to float above the fray during the televised debates. And when he did engage — as he did during the last debate with Rick Perry, the Texas governor — Mr. Romney won most of those encounters.

Mr. Perry, who was then leading the other Republican candidates in the polls, was the focus of attention during the last several debates. But his stumbling performances during those contests and other articles in the news media have blunted his fast start. In the last several polls, Mr. Romney has retaken the lead.

But with that lead comes new and sometimes unwanted attention and scrutiny.

That was made clear over the weekend as Mr. Romney’s critics renewed their assault on his stance on social issues. And several of the Republican candidates dodged questions about the relevance of Mr. Romney’s Mormon faith, after a prominent pastor referred to the Mormon Church as a cult and said that Mr. Romney was not a Christian.

The event on Tuesday night will be the first time the candidates have debated sitting down — perhaps an effort by the sponsors to encourage a serious discussion. They will be seated according to poll results, and that means Mr. Romney and Herman Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, will be next to each other.

The debate is being sponsored by Bloomberg News and The Washington Post and will start at 8 p.m. Eastern time. It will be on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg.com and WBIN-TV in New Hampshire. It will also be live-streamed at PostPolitics.com.

The candidates have also been told that they will be able to ask each other questions, and that the order will go alphabetically, with Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota starting. That means several of the candidates will get a chance for questions before Mr. Romney or Mr. Perry, who will come near the end.

Here are five things to watch for on Tuesday night:

1. The Mormon question. Mr. Romney may get a break on this given that the debate is supposed to be focused entirely on economics.

That suggests that none of the questions being prepared by Bloomberg or the Post will be about Mr. Romney’s faith. But debates are unpredictable. It is not impossible to imagine another candidate raising the issue in an oblique way.

It is also possible that one of the moderators might see fit to ask one of Mr. Romney’s rivals whether they think a discussion about Mormonism distracts from the important economic issues facing the country.

If the issue of faith does come up, look for Mr. Romney to try and deflect it quickly — his advisers say he has addressed it and wants to move on. One person likely to be outspoken in a discussion of Mr. Romney’s faith is Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor and a fellow Mormon. He called the whole issue a “sideshow” on Monday.

2. Romney, the piñata. If Mr. Romney is able to escape a discussion of his faith, he is not likely to be so lucky on other issues, in particular health care.

Mr. Perry and the other candidates know there is a danger that Republicans will start coalescing around Mr. Romney if they judge him to be the most likely to win in a race against Mr. Obama.

So they have begun attacking his credentials as a conservative, reviving the critique that Mr. Romney has changed positions frequently and is not authentic in his beliefs.

Mr. Perry introduced a brutal Web video on Monday showing President Obama looking in the mirror and seeing Mr. Romney’s reflection. Michele Bachmann swiped at Mr. Romney last week, urging voters in Iowa not to “settle” for someone who is not a true conservative.

But nowhere is the attack more likely than on health care, as Mr. Perry’s video showed. And health care in America is a legitimate economic issue that moderators of the debate are sure to address.

3. Battle of the executives. Among the more interesting dynamics to watch on Tuesday may be the interplay between Mr. Romney and Herman Cain, a former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza. Mr. Cain has surged in the polls recently, taking second place in several surveys.

Asked about Mr. Cain’s appeal during a town-hall-style meeting on Monday evening, Mr. Romney said he thought it was the fact that both men had spent time outside of government, in business.

Mr. Romney is not likely to lash out at Mr. Cain during the debate. Despite Mr. Cain’s recent popularity, Mr. Romney’s advisers do not see him as a long-term threat to winning the nomination.

But Mr. Cain has proven himself to be a formidable presence in speeches to conservative activists. And he is not unwilling to be blunt in his criticism of Mr. Romney or his other rivals. It is possible that Mr. Cain, sensing an opportunity in the moment, could pile on Mr. Romney.

4. Perry, race and expectations. One candidate likely to benefit from the economic focus of the debate is Mr. Perry, at least when it comes to the race issue.

Since the last debate, a Washington Post article about a hunting camp where Mr. Perry hosted guests that had a racial epithet painted on a rock at its entrance has forced Mr. Perry’s campaign off message. In a normal debate, it would be an obvious topic to ask him to address.

It is possible, as with Mr. Romney’s religion, that another candidate will ask Mr. Perry about the hunting camp. If so, Mr. Perry will most likely try to use the national platform to offer the explanations his campaign has given in the past — that the rock was painted over before he started going there.

But even if he does escape questions about race or the hunting camp, Mr. Perry still may not be out of the woods. In the last three debates, he got dismal reviews for appearing unprepared on several crucial issues and losing his focus. His campaign has said that this time he is devoting more time to preparation and trying to get more sleep.

Economic focus or not, the moderators and the other Republican campaigns are sure to try to test Mr. Perry to see whether he turns in a better performance, substantively and stylistically.

If he does, it may help turn around his campaign. If he has another bad night, it could further set back his fund-raising and his efforts to woo activists and establishment Republicans to his campaign.

5. Jobs and Mr. Obama. The economy should be the star of the show on Tuesday night, however, and that is likely to provide plenty of opportunity for all of the Republican candidates to criticize Mr. Obama.

In town-hall-style meetings in New Hampshire on Monday, Mr. Romney continued to call Mr. Obama a “failed” president and accused him of not understanding how the economy worked. Expect him to do more of the same.

Mr. Perry has repeatedly suggested that his experience as governor of Texas for a decade gives him unique qualifications to help the economy. And he has criticized Mr. Obama’s policies as wrongheaded and ineffective.

Mrs. Bachmann is likely to be joined by the others on the stage — Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum — in assailing Mr. Obama’s administration for actions they say have hurt the country’s economic chances.

Those include the bank bailouts, the stimulus program, the health care reform law, the Dodd-Frank efforts to regulate the banking industry and environmental regulations. Expect all of them to come up during the debate.

The question remains, however, whether any of the candidates will find the right recipe for criticizing the president and knocking their Republican rivals at the same time.

If they do, it is sure to be memorable.