This is it.  What we’ve been waiting for all along. Tonight is when all of the niceties and the side stories and the “veiled” jabs come to an end. Now it’s just Hillary vs. Obama. Oh, boy…

CNN and Wolf Blitzer have the most talked-about and potentially most exciting debate of them all tonight at the glitzy Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Just the two frontrunners duking it out tonight, with plenty of subplots and potential flare-ups possible. Like…

•  Obama has taken an unusually harsh line on the Clintons the past few days, from his snub of HRC at the SOTU to his speech from Denver yesterday that labeled Hil and Bill as dinosaurs of the past who play the politics of “personal destruction.” Ouch. How is Hillary going to react to this stuff when Blitzer brings it up? Will we see her hit back, or will she prefer to lay back and let Bill and name recognition win Super Tuesday for her. It’s neck-and-neck right now, so no telling what she and her handlers have planned.
• A few scandals involving the Dem frontrunners have recently popped up. Obama is still busy defending himself over the Rezko scandal and now Bill Clinton is involved with shady Kazakhstan uranium deals. What? It’s a story filled with mud, and just the kind of thing reporters love to bring up and rehash over and over. Will Hillary get asked about it? Will she dodge any Q related to Bill?
• Is this the night when the messages of the two candidates get condensed and delivered full-on? Obama the “change” candidate, Hillary “ready” on day one.

Look for our Dem debate liveblog starting after 8 PM.