Our political Quote of the Day comes from The New Republic’s Walter Shapiro who notes that in last night’s CNN-products GOP Presidential debate Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s rivals for the nomination had begun to fine tune their attacks on him:
CNN’s over-produced, odd-couple alliance with the Tea Party produced an unexpected result—the first “Not So Fast, Governor Perry” debate.
Direct from Tampa, the site of the 2012 GOP Convention, the debate illustrated Perry’s vulnerabilities as the poll-propelled Republican front-runner. Nothing that happened in Tampa Monday night was so dramatic that it likely will be remembered when the Republicans drench their nominee in confetti and balloons nearly a year from now. But if Perry falls short in the primaries, it will probably be because of attack lines that his rivals perfected in Tampa in September of this odd-numbered year.
On topics ranging from Social Security to his support for in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, Perry awkwardly struggled against a tag-team of his GOP rivals. Mitt Romney went toe-to-toe with Perry—or wing tip to cowboy boot—in a high-intensity exchange on job creation. Sniffing at Perry’s vaunted economic record in Texas, Romney cracked. “If you’re dealt four aces that doesn’t necessarily make you a great poker player.” What seemed telling was not the practiced one-liners, but Romney’s surprising relish in repeatedly challenging Perry in the battle to be the Alpha Male on the debate stage.
But the worst moment for Perry came when Michele Bachmann, the lone woman on stage in Tampa, awoke midway through the debate after a month-long political slumber dating back to the Iowa Straw Poll. The topic that reinvigorated Bachmann was Perry’s hastily abandoned 2007 attempt to vaccinate pre-teen girls in Texas against sexually transmitted diseases. During last week’s debate, Perry had come under fire on the issue from Ron Paul for decreeing the vaccination program by executive order instead of working through the legislature. But the libertarian gadfly was a minor political nuisance compared to Bachmann emerging as defender of girls everywhere.
“I’m a mom of three children,” Bachmann announced before letting go with coiled rage. “And to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through executive order is just flat out wrong…Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan.” The larger political theme is not the health-care merits of Perry’s stance. Rather what matters in the months ahead is whether issues like this will raise lasting doubts that Perry is not the anti-government governor that he boasts about being.
Shapiro then analyzes some of the other candidates and ends with this:
The Perry versus Romney story line seems too simple, too predictable to define the race all the way to the Iowa caucuses. While Perry is still atop his perch, the only safe bet is that something unexpected will jumble the GOP contest before the first frost.
Read it in its entirety.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has this list of last night’s winner’s and loser. He places Perry in the loser’s column:
* Rick Perry: The frontrunner didn’t get it done tonight. After surviving the expected back and forth with Romney over Social Security, Perry seemed to let his guard down a bit when the subject turned to his executive order on the HPV vaccine. Big mistake. Bachmann lit into him and Santorum jumped on too. (Romney said nothing but had to be thrilled with the development.) Perry tried to emphasize that he was acting to save lives but it didn’t sell. Following that exchange, he looked flustered and missed a chance to go after Romney in a more meaningful way on health care. And Perry’s answer on illegal immigration drew boos from the audience. Looking for a silver lining for Perry? He demonstrated a willingness to clean up self-created messes on both Social Security and his “treasonous” remark about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
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Read the entire post.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.