If tonight’s Republican debate did one thing, it exposed the weaknesses of the entire Republican field. Texas Gov. Rick Perry received the brunt of the attacks tonight, and had an uneven performance overall. No huge gaffes, but he continued to raise questions about his command of details, and faced his toughest criticism yet from the right on immigration and the HPV vaccine.
Mitt Romney was his usual smooth self, but he also hurt himself by going too hard against Perry on Social Security, accusing him of scaring seniors by accurately describing the program as a Ponzi scheme. Romney also dug in on his irreconcilable position on health care. On the one hand, he said “I’m happy to stand up for what I did,” yet on the other hand, he said that what he did in Massachusetts isn’t really relevant, because he’s running for president, not governor.
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Perry, meanwhile, missed chances in both of these exchanges. While he came off better from the conservative perspective, he said that candidates needed to have the courage to present ideas for changing Social Security, even though he himself hasn’t backed up his talk with a plan. On health care, he made the same mistake as Tim Pawlenty, by citing President Obama to back up the claim that the Massachusetts plan was the inspiration for the national health care law, which gave Romney the easy response — that we shouldn’t trust anything Obama says. Perry would have been better off explaining how they’re the same.
Perry was also battered by Rep. Michele Bachmann on immigration and the HPV vaccine mandate. She hit him not only on the liberty issue, but also on the crony capitalism angle — that he did it to benefit campaign contributor Merck. Perry’s response, that he only got $5,000 out of the $30 million he raised, is not the best defense.
On immigration, he didn’t back down on his policy of giving in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants. This will knock him down a peg among many conservatives, but immigration is not a dominant issue this year the way it was in 2007 when there was an active push for comprehensive reform that was being led by John McCain. If McCain can survive the immigration issue, so can Perry.
But Perry also raised a lot of doubts by saying he supported a pullout of Afghanistan, but still supports some presence there. His foreign policy views continue to be a big question mark. It isn’t clear what he believes, or more importantly, whether he has given the issues much thought. And speaking of foreign policy, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., was once again rightly booed for his attempt to blame U.S. policy toward Israel and bombing of Iraq for the Sept. 11 attacks.
While Bachmann got some hits on Perry, she still hasn’t shown how she can overcome her problem, which is lack of executive experience. Plus, she made some inaccurate statements, such as the fact that state level mandates are unconstitutional. While I personally oppose health insurance mandates at all levels of government as a violation of liberty, and believe the federal one is unconstitutional, as a legal matter, states do have general police power and thus are not constitutionally prohibited from issuing mandates. The lawsuits currently pending challenge the federal mandate, not the state-level Massachusetts mandate.
As for the other candidates, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum demonstrated their command of policy, but didn’t have any break through moments big enough to change their standing in the race. Jon Huntsman made a bunch of awkward jokes and Herman Cain did his thing.
