Promoted from the diaries
Last night’s debate was not the best debate. Stylistically, the google & youtube questions were annoying and largely shallow. Substantively, Perry looked as bad as he ever has with Romney coming out the winner. This is a huge problem for conservatives.
Rick Perry is on the cusp of becoming the consensus candidate that Romney isn’t. He is tea-party and establishment. He is the jobs governor and potentially the best hope we have of being Obama in 2012. But last night, he was terrible. He got beat up by Rick Santorum, Bachmann and Romney. He could not articulate a single position. He tried to return the favor to Romney on healthcare, immigration, jobs, flip-flopping, etc. and yet Mitt Romney, the largest flip-flopper of modern times, made Perry out to be the flip-flopper. Perry stumbled, slurred, repeated, tangled, and forgot his lines all night long. He is (was) the frontrunner, he is going to get attacked. Every single candidate on stage has to knock him out in order to get anywhere. The path to victory goes through him. He is going to have to learn how to deal with it and last night he failed miserably.
Something else Perry must work on, he is wrong on immigration. He may be “compassionate” but he is also stupid. I have no problem with amnesty for illegal immigrants coupled with a wall or boots on the ground. Perry has a great argument against a wall and for troops. This was the only point in the night where he sounded intelligent. But there is no responsibility to help educate illegals through in-state tuition. Texas chose to give breaks to children of illegals and I have no problem with that. However, it isn’t right and it isn’t smart. Additionally, it is not as if the son or daughter of an illegal immigrant has two choices, “fall through the cracks” and live off of the government or get in-state tuition from Rick Perry. There are many other ways to make this work. Perry needs to alter this message.
Mitt Romney was the beneficiary of Perry’s stumbles last night. Romney was articulate even when he wasn’t being honest about his record. He is a good debater, but he is not a conservative. His attacks on Perry are shameless. There are appropriate times to attack Governor Perry, there are also appropriate times to allow the moderators to attack the Governor. This is the second debate where Romney’s attitude has not seemed presidential. He often seems as whiny and petty as Rick Santorum.
Aside from all of this, Perry is right. Romney is unfit. He was for Roe v. Wade before he was against it. He was against charter schools before he was for it. He was for gay marriage before he was against it. He was for Romneycare before he was against Obamacare. And let’s not forget that technically, Obamacare doesn’t affect those with insurance like Romneycare. Technically, Obamacare is also a “market-based” plan. Obama didn’t pass “socialized medicine,” he set up a healthcare exchange with a “public option” or one government plan out of many private plans. That is as market based as Romneycare. The Obama administration has admitted that it used Romneycare as a basis for their bill. Romney signed gay marriage into law in the first U.S. state. Romney came out in support of Obama’s race to the top education plan. At the end of the day, it is glaringly clear that Romney is not one of us and he isn’t the best candidate for this position. As Rick Perry said the night before, he is “Obama-lite” but we need someone that can articulate the case against Romney and so far the only person doing that is Perry and he is failing.
Romney fired more people than he hired in the private sector.
Romney was nothing more than an average RINO governor in Massachusetts. There is nothing so great about this guy that we need to put him up against as our candidate. I don’t care if Perry is soft on immigration and tried to mandate a vaccination through executive order. Romney is the father of socialized medicine in America! (Follow the Jump for more)
