The Republican presidential candidates will descend on Florida this week for a series of high-profile events, including their third debate in as many weeks and a straw poll that for the first time will measure their standing with crucial Sunshine State voters.
The center of attention at Thursday's Fox News-Google debate is once again expected to be Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The newest candidate in the field fared well in his first debate two weeks ago, but took a pummelling from the other contenders last week after he replaced former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the GOP front-runner.
The question for Perry, who enjoys a double-digit lead over Romney in most polls, is whether he'll regain his footing following a chorus of criticism over his stances on Social Security, immigration and other issues.
All of the debate participants will take part in the Republican Party of Florida Straw Poll scheduled for Saturday, the day after conservatives converge for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
Many of the 3,500 straw poll voters haven't made up their minds about the candidates yet, said Florida GOP spokesman Brian Hughes, so they will be watching the debate performances closely.
"These are people who are coming to see which campaign has the right message and the right organization to win," he said.
Romney, eager to regain the lead, is almost certainly going to take aim at Perry from the left at this week's debate, as he did during the CNN-Tea Party debate when he criticized Perry's description of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme."
And Perry can expect jabs from the right from Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who is struggling to regain momentum after winning the Iowa Straw Poll only to fade in national polls. Bachmann, along with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, successfully slammed Perry during the last debate over his executive order requiring girls in Texas to be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted HPV virus. Perry also fended off attacks from the rest of the field about his decision to allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates.
Republicans took note of Perry's struggle during the debate and are now waiting to see how he responds to this week's round of attacks.
Perry, wrote Kevin Hall of the Iowa Republican blog, "faltered when trying to defend his HPV mandate and in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. He's going to need to make stronger arguments for the questionable spots in his resume."
Hall concluded that Bachmann, Romney and Santorum "landed solid shots against Perry and raised some legitimate concerns about his record."
Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said Perry needs to avoid "any further damage" by making sure he has solid responses ready for his opponents' attacks.
"He's pretty good with one-liners and short responses, but if it's an area he's not prepared for, that's when he gets into trouble," Jones said.
Perry delivered a potentially politically damaging response when he said a $5,000 campaign contribution he received from drug company Merck was hardly enough money to influence his decision to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine it makes.
"I think he needs to have a much better scripted answer for any of these charges of crony capitalism," Jones said.
