The first showdown between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the GOP candidates who chase him may finally occur Wednesday evening in the latest, and perhaps first significant, primary debate.

Early Tuesday, Rick Perry remained uncommitted to the debate, citing the Texas wildfires as his highest prority of the moment.

It’s a contest that so enraptures the Republican base that President Obama was browbeaten into postponing his national address on the nation’s unemployment crisis, which once conflicted with the debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

But Obama has been a well-worn punching bag for prior Republican debates; now it’s Perry who will share the verbal blows of being in an enviable position.

Outsider candidate Ron Paul unveiled a new ad Tuesday that calls Perry Al Gore’s “Texas cheerleader,” referring to Perry’s endorsement of the former vice president during the 1988 Democratic primaries.

Perry, almost from the moment he announced his candidacy, quickly raced out to the top of the GOP polls.

Since then the Texas governor has only padded his lead, coming in at 36 percent in the most recent POLITICO/George Washington University survey, more than double that of his closest challenger Mitt Romney.

In a primary season that feels powered by populist sentiments, the former Massachusetts governor has found it difficult to shake the
"establishment candidate" label that was so toxic to Republican candidates during the 2010 primaries.

At a Labor Day tea party forum in South Carolina, Romney downplayed the idea of a gap between the group’s small-government message and core Republican beliefs.

“There’s great interest to say, ‘Oh, the tea party and the mainstream Republicans, oh, they’re fighting and they’re different,’” Romney said during the forum’s question-and-answer session. “The Tea Party has at its center core a belief that government is too big. Sound familiar?”

Perhaps most affected by Perry’s ascendance has been Michelle Bachmann, once the darling of the Tea Party and a populist firebrand. At her height in popularity, Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, an early indicator for grassroots reach in the vital primary state.

But days later, Perry announced his candidacy and absorbed much of the populist energy that had fueled Bachmann — it also didn’t hurt that he faired much better in head-to-head polling against Obama. She now sits a distant third in the most recent poll and reshuffled her top staff over the weekend, including replacing her campaign manager.

Perry returned to Texas on Labor Day to attend to the wildfires burning in the state, missing the forum in South Carolina. His absence postponed his first faceoff with the other top-tier, or once top-tier candidates.