As Allan Louden told me, debates have a "legitimacy" that can serve as an "excuse" for campaigns to leak opposition research and for reporters to write stories. A debate response by a candidate is a hook for hanging certain amplifying stories for display.

The hook.
Giuliani's answers to the abortion questions in Simi, at a debate co-sponsered by Politico.com were an inviting hook.

While some headlines and ledes, like that of the conservative Washington Times, focused on Giuliani and abortion, others, like the New York Times went with the Reagan centered theme of Republican party identity crisis. The Washington Post split its focus with, "GOP Field United On War, Divided On Social Issues," (factually wrong about the war, by the way).

The Bait: Oppo Research.
The big move, reporting that Giuiliani had repeatedly donated to Planned Parenthood, had to wait until Monday, the beginning of a fresh news cycle. The move was made by a campaign sending their opposition research to Politico.com.

Their lede undercut the way Giuliani had framed his answers in the debate, the way he had been answering abortion questions throughout the campaign:

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in his campaign appearances this year has stated that he personally abhors abortion, even though he supports keeping a legal right to choose. But records show that in the '90s he contributed money at least six times to Planned Parenthood, one of the country's leading abortion rights groups and its top provider of abortions.

The debate coverage an excuse for a timely oppo dump, which then was an excuse by Politico.com to move the story still further:

Opposition researchers for other candidates hope to make Giuliani's life more difficult at regular intervals -- and to help them out, they have a trove of video clips and quotes from Giuliani's time in City Hall showing him to be a vocal advocate of abortion rights.

For example, in 2001, appearing at a NARAL/Pro-Choice America luncheon, he voiced the conservative case for abortion rights, arguing that it "might be more consistent with the philosophy of the Republican Party.

"To help them out" we have the writer of the very article that references the opposition researchers! The story was then "helpfully" updated by the author, Jonathan Martin (formely of the National Review as follows:

Following a speech Giuliani gave to the Heritage Foundation in Washington last night, I asked him why he would give money to the abortion rights organization.

"I'll have to look at that," he said before launching into his message about personally opposing the procedure but supporting a woman's right to choose.

When I followed up about why, if he was personally opposed to abortion, he would give his own money to an abortion rights group, he held firm.

"All's I can tell you are what my views are," he responded before again explaining again a stance of personal opposition but public support for legalized abortion.

The Catch.
By that time the story was spreading like wildfire as any google or nexis search will show.

Giuliani's stance on abortion had not changed. It was no more "a challenge" for Giuliani than it had been five days earlier. But the Washington Post's Tuesday story, as did others, still tied the story to the debate five days prior:

Giuliani's rambling and sometimes contradictory responses on abortion during last week's Republican presidential debate in California provided an opening for the other GOP hopefuls, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who declared Monday that an abortion rights candidate violates one of the "fundamental principles of a conservative."

That was followed up yesterday by the revival of stories noting that Giuliani had contributed to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s, sparking outrage on conservative blogs and a lengthy, uncomfortable appearance on Laura Ingraham's radio program.

"My idea of a choice is that it should be a real choice and that ultimately, then, you have to respect a woman's consciousness," Giuliani told Ingraham and listeners on 340 radio stations nationwide. "I think life is enormously important, but so is personal liberty."
Ingraham pressed Giuliani, asking him whether stories about the birth of a 22-week-old baby affected him. Giuliani said they did, calling the debate about abortion "a deeply personal" issue. He stressed that Americans understand the difference between personal beliefs and public policy.
"So why people think this is such a contradiction, I don't get. I think it's entirely consistent," he said.
When Ingraham ended the segment with a standard line about his returning again, a clearly agitated Giuliani responded: "I would love to come back, but you're going to have to ask me about the war on terror and what we do about the economy, which is after all what most citizens ask me about."
"Well, conservatives are citizens, too, Mayor Giuliani!" Ingraham responded. "We're citizens, too."

The first bolded words are right: there was an opening. The debate provided that. But there was no simple "revival of stories" that merely "followed" the debate. The stories may have been revived at some other time, but the time needs to be propitious. After the debate, it was. A pre-existing narrative of Giuliani's difficulty with social conservatives combined with answers to a debate question and access to the "new media" organ that sponsored the debate to give legitimacy to the magnitude of the resulting "fallout."

So it's no surprise that the author of the Planned Parenthood story can write a post on his blog today, "Just Not a Good Week for Rudy."

Interestingly, Martin includes in his round up of Rudy's week two items that were previously less widely known and potentially more disqualifying: questionable lobbying of the FDA on deadly Oxycontin and receipt of thousands of dollars worth of Yankees World Series rings. Harry Reid caught hell for using free boxing tickets. But the World Series rings story was not in the debate. Nor was the FDA lobbying story.

Sensing that the timing is right, oppo research has now been spread about Romney and Planned Parenthood, too. With the revelation that his wife once donated to Planned Parenthood, the editor of conservative blog RedState switches his allegiance to McCain. He claimed it was the "straw that broke the camel's back" for him. Even if that's a thin reed, the point is that the timing mattered. The debate a week ago forced the Giuliani campaign's hand now. The debate lost a Romney supporter now.

Maybe one can argue that it was best to get this out of the way. But whether for good or ill of the fortunes of the candidates, last week's debate did make a difference.

The ones that got away
This is the short and speculative part, but consider the following factors:

1. Pre-existing narrative of, "How can Giuliani be leading in the party we know to be socially conservative?"
   
2. Hot-button social issue that "defines" a big block of voters.
   
3. Prominent candidate.

Consider the issues the debate could have affected but did not, even with repect to Giuliani. He claimed the mantle of Reagan by saying he was tough and that's how he got hostages returned. But surely he was not referring to Iran/Contra! And the earlier hostage release was the fruit of negotiation. Reagan arguably "ran" from terrorists after hundreds of our Marines were killed in Lebanon.

But Giuliani's opponents would not want to argue he is too much a macho man nor that Reagan was soft and corrupt. So that story would have no oppo research to push to reporters.  

Still, the question that awaits further research and analysis is this: which stories are most likely to become the proof that debates matter? How and Why?