The two debates in the next 12 hours are supposed to offer what we've been waiting for all year: the Not Mitt Romney candidates attacking Mitt Romney. So far, the conventional wisdom goes, the Not Romneys have gone after each other, instead of the frontrunner. That's supposed to change tonight. And while Newt Gingrich can't hide his excitement at the chance to tear into Romney ("It's fight night," his spokesman told NBC News' Alex Moe), it's worth noting that the guys who came in second and third to Romney in Iowa -- Rick Santorum and Ron Paul -- believe opposite things. Santorum is a social conservative who supports offering incentives to bring manufacturing back to America, and Paul is a libertarian who talked about legalizing all kinds of things at earlier debates. It's hard to imagine they'll ignore each other. We'll be liveblogging tonight's New Hampshire debate -- which starts at 9p.m. eastern time on ABC News -- beginning at about 8p.m. 
 
 Updates: 
 
 11:00p.m.: We were promised fireworks tonight, and we got sparklers. This was the night when the Not Romneys were supposed to show why a Not Romney is necessary, but Romney cruised through without even having to defend his health care record. The debate was subdued enough that it was hard to take screen grabs of the candidates' contorted faces! (They refused to contort.) We did learn a few things: Rick Santorum is against the phrase "middle class." Newt Gingrich is against "secular bigotry." Rick Perry is for re-invading Iraq and very high collars. Paul is against chickenhawks. What we didn't learn: how the candidates' wives stay so dewey. Please send moisturization tips! 
 
 We'll be back for the next debate. It's in about 10 hours. 
 
 10:43p.m.: And that's the end of the debate. Shots so not fired. Hilariously, the commercial break features former presidential candidate Fred Thompson -- who was supposed to destroy the other Republicans in 2008 with his southern accent and actor's ability to play to the camera -- talking about "reverse mortgages." 
 
 10:41p.m.: If you weren't here tonight, where would you be? "I'd probably be at the shooting range," Perry says, trying to sound manly. But it's actually an unmanly misstep, because it reveals he forgot there's a football game on! 
 
 Everyone else says they'd be watching football, except Huntsman, who says he'd be on the phone with his sons in the Navy, and Ron Paul, who says he'd be with his family but "if they all went to bed i'd probably read an economic textbook." 
 
 10:29p.m.: Santorum comes out against the term "middle class" because we don't have titles in America and it's just a term Democrats use to divide people. "Middle income" might be okay, he says. Santorum says he doesn't want to divide Americans. The New York Times' Mark Leibovich reported today: 
 
 In his appearances across Iowa in recent months, Mr. Santorum has said that he was willing to work with his ideological counterparts, citing Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, as an ally on several issues. But the two lawmakers were at odds in the late 1990s during a debate over the procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion... Santorum deployed oversize pictures of fetuses and spoke of how a doctor “brutally kills” a fetus “by thrusting a pair of scissors into the back of its skull and suctioning its brains out.” He invited into the visitors’ gallery a 5-year old girl who had survived a serious in-utero condition that had, according to Mr. Santorum, made her mother a candidate for the late-term procedure. Ms. Boxer objected, saying it was “ exploitive to have a child present.” Ms. Boxer, who declined to comment for this article, has criticized her former colleague for his tendency to become so “harsh and personal” in his Senate dealings. 
 
 10:28p.m.: A lot of shots of the candidates' wives tonight. Callista Gingrich: 
 
 Ann Romney: 
 
 10:23p.m.: These guys were supposed to be murdering Mitt Romney all night and they haven't even mentioned health care. Romney even felt free to say we need some taxes to take care of people who can't take care of themselves. This debate isn't much different than all the ones that came before, except we don't have Michele Bachmann in her signature angelic white suits. 
 
 10:19p.m.: Gingrich talks about infrastructure and discusses a state issue. Yeah, Newt, talking infrastructure is the way you're gonna catch up to Mitt and fend off Santo. #gloveson," Politico's Jonathan Martin tweets. "Newt is really running for governor of New Hampshire tonight," The Atlantic's Molly Ball says. 
 
 10:06p.m.: Perry wants to send troops back to Iraq. 
 
 Really? In December, 78 percent of Americans said they supported President Obama's decision to pull the last troops out of Iraq. 
 
 Really: "I would sent troops back into Iraq." 
 
 10:01p.m.: Conservative tweeters did not like all that discussion of gay marriage. 
 
 " Another topic please!!" The National Review's Rich Lowry tweets. 
 
 Another topic please!!" The National Review's Rich Lowry tweets. "Exactly." Republican strategist Mike Murphy responds. 
 
 " This is quickly turning into GOP candidates against the moderators/questions. Newt's complaints often forced, not this time," The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes says. 
 
 This is quickly turning into GOP candidates against the moderators/questions. Newt's complaints often forced, not this time," The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes says. "OK, so this debate is the one where we bring up the things that Democrats hate about the GOP," New Hampshire conservative William Smith writes. 
 
 " Great moment for Newt on 'anti-Christian bigotry' in govt and media," Hot Air's Ed Morrissey tweets. 
 
 Dudes! Just 'cause the majority of Americans disagree with Republican candidates' positions on this issue doesn't mean the issue isn't important. The "man on dog" candidate is at center stage, after all. His appeal to evangelicals is the reason he nearly beat Romney in Iowa. 
 
 9:52p.m.: Gingrich does what made him so popular in early debates: attack the media. He's made "we spent so much time" on gay marriage. Referencing "secular bigotry," Gingrich says, "There's a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is on the other side," Gingrich says, saying it never gets covered by the media. Which war have Americans forgotten about: the war in Afghanistan or the war on Christmas? 
 
 There was a lot of literal finger-pointing in this answer. 
 
 9:46p.m.: Huntsman is not happy the candidates just spent 15 minutes on contraception, by his (over-) estimation. Also implies he did not make much use of it, given his seven kids. (Cameras then pan to his wife and daughter looking uncomfortable.) He says he supports civil unions because they bring "a level of dignity to relationships." 
 
 9:44p.m.: "Contraception? It's working just fine! Leave it alone," Romney says. 
 
 9:39p.m.: Romney told a joke! A real joke, ad-libbed on the spot! And people laughed! (Romney has a history of being really bad at jokes.) Asked if states have the right to outlaw contraception, Romney appears baffled at this question (is he unaware that Santorum has said that contraception encourages misbehavior in "the sexual realm"?) Would the constitution allow it? the moderator asks. Romney says no one wants to outlaw contraception, but "We could ask the constitutionalist here." Okay, it's not that funny, but there's a low bar in presidential debates. 
 
 9:37p.m.: The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin tweets, "Romney is killing because the others are killing eachother." Did we mention we predicted this? Because we predicted this. 
 
 9:34p.m.: It's easy to see why some liberals love Ron Paul. As we've pointed out at several debates, Paul says all the things liberals were dying to hear from their candidates in 2003 and 2004. Paul says the Iraq war was unnecessary, that Guantanamo Bay violates our core principles, that American foreign policy is to blame for Islamist blowback. In the last week or so, he's taken up another talking point of two presidential elections ago: that many people who support the wars in the Middle East got out of Vietnam through deferments. 
 
 Tonight, Paul made that case directly to Gingrich's face, saying Gingrich was a chickenhawk -- a "pet peeve" of Paul's. Gingrich counters that he had a wife and kid during Vietnam, but his dad went, so "I think I have a pretty good idea what it feels like to worry about your father being killed." Paul has a one-line response: "When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids, and I went." 
 
 9:29p.m.: The height of Rick Perry's shirt collars is only matched by the height of Karl Lagerfeld's. 
 
 9:24p.m.: Democratic strategist Paul Begala tweets, "Rick Perry attacks...RON PAUL and Paul attacks Santorum?! Can anyone in this band play the tuba? Someone please attack Romney!" See! We knew it! As noted above, these Not Romneys can't resist going after each other. It's that part in the movie when the Mighty Ducks start fighting each other, and their coach, instead of the other team. Focus, guys! 
 
 9:17p.m.: As Paul and Santorum argue over who's a big government spender, the candidate's facial expressions tell you a lot about these guys' personalities. Romney has a tight smile, Santorum's smirking at the thought of being criticized by Paul, and Paul is convinced he's just telling it like it is. 
 
 9:15p.m.: Romney denied that when he says he created 100,000 jobs at Bain, he's not subtracting all the people he fired. "I'm a good enough numbers guy" to know to count that, Romney says. But The Washington Post's Ezra Klein points out that's not true. The paper's Fact Checker column finds: 
 
 [Romney's spokesman] says the 100,000 figure stems from the growth in jobs from three companies that Romney helped to start or grow while at Bain Capital: Staples (a gain of 89,000 jobs), The Sports Authority (15,000 jobs), and Domino’s (7,900 jobs). This tally obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain. 
 
 9:10p.m.: Huntsman gets a chance to attack Romney's Bain days, but doesn't really bite. "Well, it's his record, and therefore it's going to be talked about… Everybody up here has a record that ought to be scrutinized." But mostly talks about his own record. 
 
 9:07p.m.: In Gingrich's first answer, he attacks Romney too. He says people should look at Romney's experience at Bain Capital, and whether people were better off after he took over the companies they worked for. 
 
 9:06p.m.: Santorum accidentally says he's still in Iowa. That can be forgiven -- he moved his whole family there. He criticizes Romney in his first answer, saying America doesn't need a business manager, because businessmen don't have experience dealing with Iran. 
 
 8:56p.m.: The New Hampshire room full of reporters watching the debate has gotten really crowded in the last half hour, judging by Townhall's Guy Benson's tweet. If you don't get much turnout at your party tonight, it's because all the cool kids are spending their Saturday night doing this. 
 
 8:49p.m.: The most important news outside of New Hampshire: The New York Daily News reports that Beyoncé is in the hospital about to give birth to her and Jay-Z's baby! 
 
 8:44p.m.: Jon Huntsman needs a miracle in New Hampshire Tuesday. He's staked his whole campaign on the state, and so far, it hasn't really paid off. If he drops out of the race, the Republican primary will be so much less visually interesting -- not just because we'll miss Huntsman's gingham shirts and trucker jackets, but because we'll miss his self-promoting daughters. We need you Jon Huntsman -- you have no idea what a drag it is to download photos of navy blue suits all day! But in an interview with Politico, it sounds like Huntsman's lost his hooch. "I believe in the ideas put forward by Theodore White, the cycles of history… I believe we are in one such cycle. I think that cycle ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas." "Ultimately" doesn't sound soon enough to mean Tuesday. 
 
 8:26p.m.: The New York Times' Nick Confessore tweets this photo of "the entire presidential press corps" watching the debate "on a giant screen a quarter mile from the debate." 
 
 It doesn't look like a very fun party. 
 
 8:33p.m.: Politico's Jim VandeHei and Maggie Haberman wonder whether we'll see Good Newt or Bad Newt tonight. His charming debate performances helped him briefly pull ahead of Romney in polls, but since Iowa, he's shown more and more of his "acid tongue and nasty streak." 
 
 And Wayne Washington, of the South Carolina newspaper The State, points out that in the last week, Gingrich hasn't been the only one dabbling in ugly rhetoric. Washington writes, "three Republican Party presidential candidates have tied either black people, in general, or President Barack Obama, in particular, to welfare or other forms of public assistance that, the candidates say, lead to dependency, out-of-control government spending and a culture of entitlement that is harming the nation." Are they telling it like it is? Or trying to play to the racial politics in South Carolina? 
 
 8:15p.m.: This will be the first debate where Santorum gets lots of attention. He'll share center state with Romney tonight, Politico's Dylan Byers reports. Will he charm voters? Maybe only with the help of a buzzer to tell him when to stop talking. National Journal's Ron Fournier reports on the impression Santorum leaves on the campaign trail: 
 
 "He reminds me of a high school student who transfers into an honors class and tries to show everybody how smart he is,'" said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who attended a Santorum town hall this week. "It gets annoying." 
 
 There's one problem with Cullen's analysis, though: has the above situation ever happened in high school? In college, sure. But among teenage honor students (which includes both nerds and girls with perfect handwriting), the social hierarchy is based on being cool. Not trying "to show everybody how smart" they are, right? 
 
 Still, it's another datapoint for Glenn Greenwald, who has written about how media and political people never get over high school. 
 
 Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. 
 
 Elspeth Reeve ||||| Mitt Romney brushed aside rivals' criticism Saturday night in the opening round of a weekend debate doubleheader that left his Republican presidential campaign challengers squabbling among themselves and unable to knock the front-runner off stride. 
 
 Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich answers a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, answers a question as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum listens during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, listens to Texas Gov. Rick Perry answer a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Saturday, Jan.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney answers a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (L-R)... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (L-R)... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman answers a questions as Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, listens, right, during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Saturday, Jan.... (Associated Press) 
 
 former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, listens as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum answers a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Three days before the first in-the-nation New Hampshire primary, Romney largely ignored his fellow Republicans and turned instead on President Barack Obama. "His policies have made the recession deeper and his policies have made the recovery more tepid," he said, despite a declining unemployment rate and the creation of 200,000 jobs last month. 
 
 Over the course of the lively 90-minute debate, there were attacks aplenty as Romney's five rivals vied to emerge as his principal rival in the primaries ahead. The former Massachusetts governor won an eight-vote victory in the Iowa caucuses last Tuesday and is far ahead in the pre-primary polls in New Hampshire. 
 
 That leaves his pursuers little time to stop his rise, and, all but conceding New Hampshire to the former governor of next-door Massachusetts, they're mostly focusing their efforts on the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21 
 
 Texas Rep. Ron Paul assailed Rick Santorum as a "big government person," an allegation the former Pennsylvania senator disputed. Santorum finished a close second to Romney in Iowa this week, with Paul coming in third. 
 
 Paul, who has called former House Speaker Newt Gingrich a "chicken hawk" who has not served in the military, drew withering criticism in return. "I personally resent the kinds of comments and aspersions he routinely makes," Gingrich said. 
 
 Paul got the last word, saying emphatically, "When I was drafted I was married and had two kids, and I went." He was an Air Force surgeon in the Vietnam War era. 
 
 Gingrich was fourth in Iowa, Perry fifth and Minnesota rep. Michele Bachmann, who has since quit the race, was last. Huntsman did not compete there, hoping to make a splash in New Hampshire. 
 
 Romney, who often touts his business background, was attacked in the opening moments of the debate. 
 
 Santorum went first, dismissing him as a mere manager. "Being a president is not a CEO. You've got to lead and inspire," he said. 
 
 Gingrich followed a few moments later, referring to published accounts that described how some workers were laid off after Bain Capital, the firm Romney once led, invested in their companies and sought to turn them around. 
 
 He said Romney should be judged on the basis of whether "on balance, were people better off or worse off by this style of management." 
 
 Unruffled, the former Massachusetts governor retorted that Bain had created 100,000 jobs on balance, and that a businessman's experience was far better to fix the economy that a lifetime spent in Washington, D.C. "I'm very proud of the fact that the two enterprises I led were successful," he said, referring to Bain and another firm. 
 
 More than an hour later, Romney turned one question about his vision for the country into an attack on Obama that is part of his standard campaign speech. While his rivals stood by silently, he accused the president of trying to turn the United States into a "European-style welfare state." 
 
 Perry, who flirted with quitting the race after Iowa, emphasized that he was an outsider in the race as he sought to lump his rivals into one, unappealing category. 
 
 "I think you've just seen a great example of why I got in the race. ... I'm the only outsider," he said as he watched Santorum, Paul, Gingrich and Romney clash. 
 
 Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman dismissed much the back-and-forth as "insider gobbledygook ... a lot of political spin," saying he would focus on more important questions such as national security. 
 
 He drew one of the few barbs that Romney directed at a fellow Republican during the evening. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Governor. You were the last two years implementing the policies of this administration in China. The rest of us on this stage were doing our best to get Republicans elected across this country and stop the policies of this president from being put forward." 
 
 There were a few light moments. 
 
 At one point, Paul was interrupted by a bell meant to indicate his time to speak had expired. "There it goes again," he said. 
 
 Santorum replied instantly: "It knows you're not telling the truth." 
 
 The intramural skirmishes reflected the state of the race _ Romney the acknowledged front-runner under attack from his rivals, who face an increasingly urgent need to emerge as his main conservative challenger. 
 
 The debate at Saint Anselm College was the first in more than three weeks, and the first since Bachmann dropped out of the race. The candidates faced a quick turnaround for the second debate, set for Sunday morning in Concord.
– Mitt Romney was supposed to be the prime target at tonight's ABC debate, but it didn't quite work out that way, writes Steve Peoples at AP. His rivals took some shots at him but squabbled among each other just as often. Romney, for his part, focused most of his fire at President Obama. ("His policies have made the recovery more tepid.") Romney "never appeared flustered," writes Michael D. Shear at the New York Times, and his display of "perfect calm" was tailor-made for a front-runner. "Shots so not fired," adds Elspeth Reeve at the Atlantic blog. Some notable moments: Paul-Santorum: Ron Paul accused Rick Santorum of being a "big-government person" who also was "corrupt" for taking lobbyists' money. Santorum called the corruption charge "ridiculous" and said his record was "pretty darn good." Santorum-Romney: Santorum called Romney a manager, not a leader. "Being a president is not a CEO. You've got to lead and inspire," he said. Romney also had to defend his work years ago at Bain Capital and said he helped create 100,000 jobs overall while there. (That's a tricky figure to verify, notes the Times.) Santorum-Romney II: Santorum called Romney's economic plan "not particularly bold," reports the Washington Post. He also objected to the term "middle class," saying, “There are no classes in America. We are a country that (doesn’t) allow for titles. ... That’s not the language that I’ll use as president. I’ll use the language of bringing people together.” Paul-Gingrich: Newt Gingrich bristled at an accusation from Paul that he took a deferment to avoid war. He said he was married with a child at the time. Paul followed up: "I was married and I had two kids and I went." Romney joke: "Contraception? It's working just fine. Leave it alone." Perry-Huntsman: Jon Huntsman called for bringing home US troops from Afghanistan and elsewhere, while Rick Perry said he would return them to Iraq as fast as possible.