The fight for the Republican presidential nomination began narrowing into an intense and ideological battle at a debate Wednesday night, with Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Mitt Romney sharply clashing over Social Security, health care and each other’s long-term prospect against President Obama.
A series of spirited exchanges between the two men, which revealed differences in substance and style, offered the first extensive look into the months-long contest ahead. They traded attacks on each other’s job creation records and qualifications to be president, overshadowing their opponents in the crowded Republican field.
Mr. Perry doubled down on his view of Social Security, assailing it as a “monstrous lie,” and he questioned scientists’ assertions that climate change has been caused by human activity. Mr. Romney said that Social Security should be protected and suggested that Mr. Perry’s positions would make it difficult for the Republican Party to appeal to a broad base of voters needed to win the White House.
“Maybe it’s time to have some provocative language in this country,” said Mr. Perry, who spent much of his time in his first presidential debate defending his Texas record and a litany of positions in his book, “Fed Up!”
On the eve of the president’s economic speech to a joint session of Congress, the debate here at the Ronald Reagan Museum and Library focused far more on the distinctions among the Republican candidates than on Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy. The entire Republican field united around the notion of limiting Mr. Obama to a single term, but differed in proposing solutions to the ailing economy.
Mr. Perry attacked Mr. Romney’s record of creating jobs in Massachusetts and his championing of health care legislation when he was governor. Mr. Romney, in turn, cast Mr. Perry as a career politician.
“Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt,” Mr. Perry said, referring to the former Democratic governor who ran for president in 1988.
“Well, as a matter of fact,” Mr. Romney replied, “George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did, Governor.”
The crowd of Republicans burst into laughter.
But as the exchanges intensified, one of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, chastised the moderators of the debate, from NBC and Politico, and said they were trying to stoke divisions among Republicans in a way he said would help Mr. Obama.
That said, neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Perry seemed to need much prompting.
Mr. Romney argued that Mr. Perry, who has spent much of his life in government, lacked the experience in private industry needed to turn the economy around. And seeking to undercut what has been Mr. Perry’s main claim in advancing his candidacy — his record as governor — Mr. Romney argued that Mr. Perry had benefited from institutional advantages, ranging from a Republican state legislature and state Supreme Court to the economic benefits of having vast deposits of gas and oil.
“Those are wonderful things, but Governor Perry doesn’t believe that he created those things,” Mr. Romney said. “If he tried to say that, well, it would be like Al Gore saying he invented the Internet.”
The exchanges quickly moved from the economy to health care. The candidates were asked to register their opinions on the health care plan that Mr. Romney signed into law in Massachusetts.
Mr. Perry chimed in first, declaring, “It was a great opportunity for us as a people to see what will not work, and that is an individual mandate in this country.”
Mr. Romney sought to defend the health care law, which was a precursor to the federal plan signed into law by Mr. Obama, but said it was intended for his state only. If elected, he said, he will move to repeal the Obama administration’s law as soon as he takes office.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah who stepped down as the ambassador to China in the Obama administration, sought to insert himself into the exchange and pointed out that Utah under his stewardship led all states across the country in creating new jobs. Mr. Huntsman assailed the hard-line posture Mr. Romney has taken toward China.
“Mitt,” he said, “now is not the time, in a recession, to enter a trade war.”
The debate here at the Reagan Library revolved to a large degree around Mr. Perry, whose candidacy has dramatically changed the contour of the race.
Mr. Perry defended his record of overseeing the execution of 234 inmates in Texas. When asked by one of the moderators, Brian Williams of NBC News, if he had lost sleep over the decision, Mr. Perry replied, “No, sir, I’ve never struggled with that at all.”
The invited audience, made up of supporters of the candidates and patrons of the library, broke out into applause when Mr. Williams noted again that 234 people had been executed.
Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who had hoped that her victory in the Iowa straw poll last month would place her among the top tier of candidates, struggled to break through during the exchanges. She, along with former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Herman Cain, a businessman, were asked far fewer questions than Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry.
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6 Responses
If this debate showed anything at all it was that there are a bunch of people who can beat Obama.
So where did they disagree? Neither feels that Social Security is solvent (Obama admitted that when he said he couldn’t pay benefits if the debtr limit wasn’t increased, admitting the “trust fund” no longer existed). They are both skeptical that “Climate change” requires massive taxation and restructing of the economy.
There really isn’t that much difference between them.
It seems that the big difference is in tone and rhetoric and resume. One is cynical and brash, born to poverty, and went to a public university to study how to be a farmer (probably paid for by ROTC) . The other is a very sophisticated preppie born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with a JD/MBA from Harvard (presumably paid for with a full “fathership”).
As this is one of the rare “throw the rascals out” year, Perry should do fine (and the fact that Social Security has turned into a Ponzi scheme, and the Climate change is a hoax, will help him since these will all be apparent in the course of the election).
#2
Climate change is a hoax???
Are you saying that:
1) You think that the Earth is NOT getting warmer – i.e. you deny verifiable facts that you can see with your own eyes
2) You think that the Earth is getting warmer, but it’s all “natural” and “part of our cycle” (this is the new GOP position, get with the facts) – i.e. you disagree with 98% of the world’s scientists in that humanity has played a role in the temperature change.
Does it bother anyone that Newt Gingrich was the only one who seemed seriously concerned about the terrorist threat? And Bachmann the only one who mentioned Israel at all (regarding Obama’s recommendation to 1967 borders).I was able to eliminate at least 4 from my list of potentials from last night.
#3
Climate change is not a hoax.
“Climate Change (R)” is a hoax.
How long ago was it called “Global Warming”? Then they realized that some years the planet is hotter and some years the planet is colder, so they changed the terminology to “Climate Change”. Guess what? Every single moment the climate is changing.
There was a report a few months ago that scientists who watch the sun have seen a slow down in the sun activity (whatever that means) and they are expecting a major cool down in the next few years? Is that climate change?? Yes!
Did this mornings deoderant shpritz cause “Climate Change”?
I doubt it!
Keep on shpriting and making the world more plesant for those around you!!
#3- According to their science New York used to be under a glacier, and the site of Boro Park was over a hundred miles inland. Are you suggesting some cavemen burned enough carbon to shrink the glacier?? If no, then apparently something is at work that is much more powerful than human interactions.
In Rashi’s time, Greenland grew vegetables, and wine grapes grew in northern Europe and northern New England. By the time of the Mahral, and through the early 1800s, those areas were too cold for such plants. Today they appear to have warmed up. Similar cycles have been observed throughout recorded history. This suggests that the fluctuations are normal.
Remember, between January 2011 and July 2011, average daily temperatures rose by 50 degrees. Does that mean that in two years it will hit boiling and we’ll all die.
The 98% of scientists are self-selecting. There are broad groups who disagree. One also should remember that these same groups were addicted to “eugenics” (which led to Jim Crow in the US, and the holocaust in Europe). In the 1960s and 1970s, they were predicting a new ice age, and based on their science, predicted massive famines by 2010 (have you noticed the millions of starved corpses on the streets of Brooklyn and London, or even Shanghai or Mumbai). Their prescriptions, then as now, were radical conservation and cutting population growth through abortion and sterilization, and cracking down of minorities with large families.
If the election is decided on Obama’s proposal to radically cut standards of living, and employment, in order to reduce carbon emmission, Perry (trained as a farmer, not a lawyer) will have an easy time winning.