The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is holding its first presidential debate tonight with Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Excluded from the debate will be Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who are both on enough state ballots to win the amount of electoral votes necessary to assume the presidency.

Heading into tonight’s debate most Americans expect Mitt Romney to perform worse on stage than President Obama. Multiple polls found that by nearly a two to one margin Americans expect Obama to win the first debate this evening.

Republican Gaston County Commissioner Tracy Philbeck and Gaston County Democratic Party Chairman Robert Kellogg appeared on MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts this morning and it was good to see the issue receive national attention. Philbeck referred to protecting “God-ordained” marriage and other embarrassments that illustrated his complete lack of understanding of church-state separation. Marriage isn’t being redefined in this ballot initiative.

Hopefully this week will be the “Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Newts of War” edition, because his team has decided that the reason he’s trailing is that he’s not obnoxious enough.

I’m still a bit shocked that people are still surprised that the GOP Presidential Clown Car could roll through South Carolina — the state that gave us nullification, the Civil War, John C. Calhoon, and a hundred and fifty year succession of secessionist, racist politicians — and have it captured by a dog-whistling practitioner of the ugly art of racial and classist demagoguery.

Yeah, we can talk about how Newt went ballistic and blamed the media for asking about his wandering pee-pee and alleged open marriage request of wife #2, or how Rick Santorum finally located his #clownballs and pummeled Romney and Newt mercilessly in a desperate attempt to remain relevant, but it was Mittens, poor little Mittens, who stunk up the joint at the CNN Debate held in Charleston, SC Thursday night.

Satire is dead; the Republican Presidential contest killed it, stone-cold dead. And we don’t even have to recite all the outrageous things they’ve said, or things others have said about them, just in the last 24-48 hours. It’s too depressing, too mind-numbing to relate.

So here we are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a Fox News, Wall Street Journal and South Carolina Republican Party Debate on Martin Luther King Day, with Bret Baier of Fox News, and Gerald Seib and Kelly Evans of the Wall Street Journal asking the questions.

Well, here we are in Spartanburg, SC for yet another Republican debate (didn’t we just have one?). Hosted by CBS News and the National Journal, Scott Pelley and Major Garrett will run the show.

With some many debates in the Republican primary this year the impact anyone has is often extremely small, but there is always the potential a debate can matter if a single moment from it goes viral. A memorable line or terrible gaffe could end up being the 30 second clip that epitomizes some large dynamic in the race and as a result is aired over and over on on the news and Internet.