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The Spectacle Blog
Rick Perry versus Mitt Romney: Thursday night, it was no contest.
People from Texas often say that, while they don’t dislike Perry, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. With every debate, that criticism has been validated, with Thursday night the most egregious example of Perry’s intellect simply not being at the level of others on the stage. It’s no coincidence that Perry’s poll numbers have fallen after each prior debate, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mitt Romney recover the lead in various GOP polls over the next several days following Perry’s disastrous performance.
To be sure, Perry was being attacked from across the stage, though it seemed less than in the prior debate. His problem was two-fold: His answers were mediocre and stumbling, and his attacks on Mitt Romney were deftly thwarted by just two words from Romney: “Nice try.”
Perry has a huge problem on the issue of illegal immigration. He is credible when it comes to the issue of border security, but his opponents’ talking points on “bi-national health insurance” and subsidizing Texas’ public universities for illegal alien residents of Texas are devastating. Now, bi-national health insurance may be a reasonable idea — basically allowing private insurance policies to cover treatments in either country, which could be very useful for people who live on one side of the border and work on the other, of whom there are many in southern Texas. Nevertheless, just the term “bi-national health insurance” will sound terrible to many GOP primary voters who won’t dig any further into what it means.
And that’s the defensible one. Subsidizing education for illegal aliens, even if they were brought here by their parents, is bad policy. It is a magnet for illegals with children to move to Texas. Furthermore — and it’s amazing that in two debates in a row no other candidate has mentioned this — an illegal with a college degree is still an illegal, and not permitted to work here. So until our immigration or work visa system changes to allow such a person to work here, the argument for providing a subsidized education for him or her is extremely weak. Perry also made a huge mistake by saying that people who do not support his efforts to help these illegals are heartless.
Conservatives are rightly sick and tired of being called things like heartless, much less by a Republican presidential hopeful. After all, it’s the left’s oh-so-heartfelt policies which have sentenced large segments of America to poverty through the chain of the welfare state. That single statement may eventually be looked back on as the death knell of Rick Perry’s campaign.
It’s also worth noting that Perry had the dumbest line of the night: When debating border control with Rick Santorum, in particular the question of a fence versus patrols, Perry said he would “put…the aviation assets on the ground.” It doesn’t need to be explained why that’s such a poorly worded statement.
Perry and Romney went back and forth about what each of them has said or written in the past about Social Security and health care. While it’s hard to put a finger on it, it felt like Romney got the better of those two exchanges. The substance of the charges against each other was fairly similar, but one couldn’t help believing that Romney was probably right in what he said about Perry’s book, with Perry less certain to be right on the facts in his claims about Romney. Romney’s answers were quick, crisp, and confident, and he seemed usually to be looking at Perry when he spoke to him, a move which viewers would take (even if subconsciously) as the behavior of a confident person. Perry on the other hand seemed to have rambling, nearly incoherent answers, and rarely looked at Romney whether criticizing or responding to him. It was the pose of someone unsure of his own words, unsure whether he was in the same league as his competition.
Romney did a fairly good job, for the second time, convincing the audience that Romneycare is different from Obamacare, and that Romney firmly believes that his measure was a state solution only and is not appropriate to be implemented in any similar form at a federal level, in short that health care is not the province of the federal government. He also did something new (at least new to me) when he said that “Our plan in Massachusetts has some good parts, some bad parts, some things I’d change, some things I like about it.” Taking responsibility for a mistake is so different from anything our current president does that it probably struck a strong positive note with GOP voters even while he was admitting a mistake.
Overall, it was Romney’s style that helped him as much as the substance of his answers. He was distinctly presidential, and it was a sharp contrast to the dark and often downward-looking Rick Perry, who looked and sounded overwhelmed. And on the substance, Romney dealt with criticism very well, not just from Perry, but parrying a question from Fox’s Bret Baier about the Wall Street Journal’s criticism of Romney’s tax plan as timid. And indeed it is timid, and Romney stuck with it, arguing for tax cuts for interest, dividends, and capital gains, for people earning under $200,000 a year. This is, at least at where he places the dividing line, something too close to what we might hear from President Obama and plays too much into the left’s class warfare rhetoric, offering comfort to the enemy.
It is part of Romney’s obvious strategy to avoid moving too far to the right to win the primary and then have to swing hard to the middle for the general election. He’s going to play this as close to the middle as possible from the beginning, hoping that he’s conservative enough and perceived as electable enough to win the nomination, leaving him in a position where it’s slightly harder for Barack Obama to call him a right-wing nut or accuse him of flip-flopping (as Romney is already vulnerable on that charge.) Also, Romney probably knows that if his policy actually gets to a Republican-controlled House (and likely Republican-controlled Senate), that they would strip out that threshold and allow him to sign a bill that offers tax relief to everyone, which is to say to include the people who pay the majority of income taxes in America.
Among the people who can’t win the nomination, Herman Cain was probably the debate winner. But there is no doubt that the real winner of Thursday’s debate was Mitt Romney and the real loser was Rick Perry.
In political betting at Intrade.com for who will be the Republican nominee, Rick Perry has dropped more than 5 percent in the last 24 hours, from nearly 36 percent to just over 30 percent, his lowest betting odds since officially entering the race. During that same 24 hour period, Mitt Romney has gone from trading just over 38 percent to about 41 percent. This represents a new betting high for Romney, and obviously the biggest gap between the two candidates of the whole campaign. Yes, it is very early, but as we say in the trading business “the trend is your friend” and as of today you’d certainly rather be Mitt Romney than Rick Perry when it comes to achieving your political aspirations.
Dai Alanye | 9.23.11 @ 12:54PM
Thus far the campaigns of Pawlenty and Perry seem primarily to have served the interests of Romney, and it appears Bachmann's might be headed in that direction. The only credible Romney-stopper presently running is Santorum, and he needs to upgrade his "Presidential" persona.
martin j smith| 9.23.11 @ 12:54PM
No we lose. We have a phony debate since no one is openly challenging the current President and offering an alternative vision for this nation. We are in crisis and this debate swerves off into personalities and "gotcha" moments. This garbage and it a repeat of the 2008 process. That is terrible and our nation will go down. If the Republican Establishment want this then who needs them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Al Adab| 9.23.11 @ 2:04PM
ou correctly point out what is wrong with these "debates" and the format. If we must accept another GOP candidate to the left of Nixon or McCain, what is the point? To borrow your succinct phrase, "we lose" even if the election went to the GOP.
Butch| 9.23.11 @ 3:31PM
I agree, Martin. For one thing, all these "debates" have been a Perry-bashing-fest. There's no real debate at all: Perry takes potshots from everyone else for three hours. When does socialized medicine come up? Perry has been savaged by everyone in all of these, and Romney has largely gotten a pass in all of them. I despise this format.
Obama can beat Romney. Romney will wear Romneycare and flip-flopping around his neck like an anvil. But suppose he wins: He will only tweak socialized medicine and he will not try to dismantle counterproductive and unnecessary bureaucracies. He is a down-the-line Ivy League statist.
We're not electing a debater, we're electing a President.
Clint| 9.23.11 @ 1:11PM
Wall Street & Their Ruling Elite Cronies are setting us up for their Frontman, Mittens Romney.
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here.
Casey Abell| 9.23.11 @ 1:13PM
It's gotten even worse for Perry on Intrade: 43.5-27.1 Romney-Perry.
Okay, it's only a silly little wagering site and doesn't mean squat. But nobody's pretending Perry had a good night.
Funny note: at Weekly Standard ol' buddy Bill Kristol is wailing for Chris Christie once again. At least Christie would be a competent debater...I think.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 6:48PM
I've never seen that "silly site" get it wrong.
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 1:40PM
Romney wins? Hahaha!
Thanks for the laugh.
Sorry, I'm not fooled.
Ross Kaminsky | 9.23.11 @ 2:11PM
Romney definitely won the debate, Margie. That's the only point I was making. (At least among the candidates who seem to have a chance at this point. That said, I remember 2008 as well.)
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 3:53PM
But Ross,
That's only your opinion. I think mine's better.
LOL.
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 3:53PM
Mine is that Herman Cain won. Prayer is a wonderful thing!!
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 7:06PM
Margie, you might want to go check Politifact. Cain isn't exactly the most truthful candidate.
Occam's Tool| 9.23.11 @ 2:05PM
This would NOT effect my voting for him, as it is a minor issue overall---but supporting in-state tuition for ILLEGALS, while denying in-state tuition for American citizens from other states makes NO damn sense. I speak as an out of state graduate of a Texas Medical School. I had planned to have my professional life in Texas. But after getting screwed over by having my Med School tuition increased from $1400/yr to $14, 400 from 1984-1988 (and having the bill passed without warning in the summer between freshman and sophomore years so that I could not properly take it into account when making my initial decision between Illinois Chicago (UIC) and Galveston Medical Schools), I decided never to practice in Texas, and never have. (A good thing too, as had I accepted the Texas job I was offered, thanks to President Obama, I would now be DEAD.)
Only an asshole on this issue would think that it's a good thing. But foreign policy and tax cuts trump a minor issue. No candidate is perfect, unless Margie decided to run.
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 3:52PM
LOL! Occam you cracked me up!!!
RJ| 9.23.11 @ 2:11PM
Romney had some good statements, but he strikes me as a sales guy, who will say what you want to hear, but will fold under pressure. I don't know who to vote for yet, but of all the candidates in the debate yesterday, if I were faced with a life or death situation, the guy I would want with me is Rick Perry. A good president needs more than good debating skills.
The highlight of these debates for me is listening to Newt Gingrich - what a joy to hear his comments during these debates.
Casey Abell| 9.23.11 @ 2:30PM
Again, Intrade is a hobby site and there's no reason to take its movements very seriously. But I'm looking at the market action on Perry during the debate. Ouch!
Before the debate Perry was trading at about a 35% chance for the nomination. After the debate wrapped up, there was a wholesale panic. Perry's shares dove as low as an 18% chance at the nom.
At this point buyers stepped in. (I would have, too. Perry is better than an 18% bet.) Perry recovered to the low thirties.
Then Intraders apparently read the reviews this morning and again drove Perry down to his current 27%.
Little different action on Romney. He gradually rose from 38% to 40% throughout the day of the debate. On the morning after he surged to a high of 45% before settling in at his current 43.5%.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 6:50PM
Intrade wagers real money and I have yet to see it predict wrongly.
carol| 9.23.11 @ 2:33PM
If they don't stop they will give it to Obama
It's the economy stupid. EXPLAIN to the idiots out there, how it really works. The one who dumbs the economy down with undestandable solutions, the best, wins. and say it over and over again. do the short and simple thing . Otherwise they will just give the election to Obama notice how quiet they are after the debates Let the republicans kill each other. I am sick of it already How stupid are they......
Casey Abell| 9.23.11 @ 2:36PM
Other current tidbits from Intrade. Obama is slightly underwater at a 48.2% chance for re-election. And Intraders see a 71.0% chance that the GOP takes the Senate next year.
Goofy site but fun.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 6:53PM
Are you only here to bash a website? This is the third comment I've seen of you bashing Intrade.
It wagers real money and has yet to predict wrongly from what I've seen.
martin j smith| 9.23.11 @ 2:51PM
When Romney openly questions the Socialists on class warfare. When Romney zeros in Obama's economic disaster and offers an alternative--NOT 59 steps( by the way what happened to Romney's economic plan ? ) When Romney offers a vision for America with real hope . Till then he will be another McCaine and
not worth holding my breadth for !!!!!!!!!!!!!
then I will have a different view. Until then
Ross Kaminsky | 9.23.11 @ 3:19PM
i understand all the hesitancy about Romney, and I share it. i've written a few times, and still believe, that Romney's fortunes will come down to whether Republican primary/caucus voters decide to focus more on apparent electability than ideological purity.
I think they will, and unlike 2008, I hope they do, even though Romney is far from Grade-A on policy questions so far.
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 3:55PM
Well, like a good American, I'll still vote for him IF.. IF... IF he becomes the nominee.
But Herman Cain's up and coming.. yes he is!
RJ| 9.23.11 @ 4:16PM
"unlike 2008"? I don't understand your comment.
John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee was hardly the result of GOP voters selecting a candidate on ideological purity. I submit that McCain is proof of the failure of the political strategy of not offering voters a clear choice from the Democratic alternative. There were two times when McCain lead Obama - first when he announced Sarah Palin as his VP nominee and second when Palin debated Biden. And let's not forget that Ronald Reagan was the most successful GOP candidate in attracting Democratic and Independent voters. You have to stand for something in order to attract voters.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 7:00PM
No, 2008 was an example of people tired of one political party and its incumbency. As far as your polling argument is concerned, go look a Nate Silver. He's usually considered the best pollster around, and he never had McCain ahead. The Dems were going to win that election regardless of who they nominated (and regardless of who the GOP nominated). I personally thought Bill Richardson would've been a better choice for them, but I'm not a Dem, so whatever.
Clint| 9.23.11 @ 3:26PM
"Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, singled out Romney's Massachusetts health care plan as a primary reason why the national front-runner for the Republican nomination "clearly has difficulties" with members of the movement.
"He's attached to RomneyCare and has done a poor job of distancing himself from that," Meckler told reporters at a breakfast in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "I think he probably squandered an incredible opportunity and was probably the best guy to say, ‘I tried this and it failed,' and he has not done a good job of that. So he has taken positions that are contrary to what the average Tea Partier would take -- positions on man-made global warming, positions on energy efficiency. So I think he's in real trouble with the Tea Party base."
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here.
John - TMF| 9.23.11 @ 3:42PM
Romney is a cheesy plastic used car salesman doing a bit better than average in a phony debate over gotcha questions that don't allow for a real exploration of the issues at hand.
He is a Liberal Democrat (with a magnetic R slapped over the D) failed former governor of a foundering liberal mess of a state.
He's Michael Bloomberg with better hair.
Is Romney better than Obummer? I have a big rock in my back yard that's better and more useful than OZero... but the rock might just be better than Romney, too.
These debates need to end. They are a blight and more useless than Yugo commercials (Oh, yeah and Romney would be the one trying to sell one to you, too...)
-TMF
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 4:05PM
Between you and Grzmlyk, I am exasperated.
You guys, could you please tell us how you REALLY feel?
LOL.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 7:03PM
Such great, reasoned, and (strangely) ironic comments. I had no idea ad hominem could be used to complain about fake, shallow debates.
Al Adab| 9.23.11 @ 4:11PM
The true loser in the "debate" was the American Republic. If the GOP, the alterntive party to the current government, can do no better than someone to the left of Nixon and McCain, they represent no alternative at all.
Frankly all the discussion of who won, who lost, only serves to enhance the current chance for re-election.
Margie| 9.23.11 @ 4:21PM
"Frankly all the discussion of who won, who lost, only serves to enhance the current chance for re-election."
I don't happen to believe in magic, Al Adab.
TJ| 9.23.11 @ 7:31PM
Intrade now prices Romney at 43.9%, an almost 6% point jump in the last day or so. The bottom has dropped out from under Rick Perry--he's now priced at 26.5%, almost a 10% drop. The losses from Perry not picked up by Romney seem to have gone to Chris Christie, who is again flirting with the idea of running.
mollyinjo| 9.23.11 @ 8:20PM
Perry can become a more skilled debater. Romney can't become a more principled person. And having the entire stage attacking Perry is hardly a fair fight. The Republican establishment can take Dole/McCain Redux, whoops, I mean Romney, and go to hell.
Rick Perry for President.
RJ| 9.24.11 @ 1:59AM
I understand your point, but the Republican nominee will not get a fair fight in the general election. You can bet that the media will be doing all it can to elect Obama. The GOP needs a candidate, who can stand up to the attack. The media couldn't lay a glove on Reagan. Our next candidate will need the same skill.
david| 9.24.11 @ 10:31AM
It is a crying shame that Mr. Perry is getting so much attention. The fleeting interest in Ms. Bachman is also unfortunate. Romney was a winner in the most recent debate.
Nathan| 9.24.11 @ 6:45PM
Bachmann is the biggest liar in Congress. Go check Politifact. I, for one, am glad she's fading away. She should have never been a legitimate candidate in the first place. She's a black eye on the Republican Party.