As the GOP debate progressed, the decorum on the stage was not matched behind the scenes. Mitt Romney’s press team launched three press release attacks on rival Gov. Rick Perry. Romney’s was the only shop sending out press releases during the debate. His first hit slammed Perry for saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that shouldn’t exist. That PR quoted the Daily Beast, Politico and well-known Texas political journalist Paul Burka (who tends to lean to the left) in its assault on Perry. Romney’s second release hit Perry for having written a letter to Hillary Clinton during the HillaryCare debate — a curious choice of targets, given Romney’s record on health care when he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney’s final press release during the debate hit Perry on his record on spending as governor of Texas. Two of the Romney releases featured this graphic, which slams Perry for being a “career politician.”
Romney’s hitting Perry, to the exclusion of all other GOP presidential candidates, exposes the reality that he came into tonight’s debate worried at having lost his frontrunner status to the Texas governor. He wisely stayed away from punching down at any of the trailing candidates, but it’s worth wondering whether this strategy may prove to be a bit too aggressive.
Update: While the Romney press shop was cranking out press releases, a Romney adviser was busy emailing Ben Smith at the Politico to declare that Perry had “lost” because he said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
Romney adviser Stuart Stevens emails:
He has lost. No federal candidate has ever won on the Perry program to kill Social Security. Never has. never will.
One, why is this even controversial? It has been known since at least the 1980s that Social Security was on a collision course with the Baby Boom generation, at which point we will have too many retirees taking out of the system what younger Americans are putting in. And two, why is Romney’s shop peddling its attacks on Perry to the Politico? Romney circa 2008 was great at outreach to conservative blogs. Romney circa 2011 is stiffarming conservative blogs and using the liberal Politico to slam fellow Republicans. That’s not a healthy shift in my opinion. Romney is essentially trying to use one of the GOP’s ideological enemies to win the GOP nomination.
Romney is such a fake and has all the charm of a used car dealer. I’m no big Perry fan, but he is right in saying that social security was a Ponzi scheme and that it needs to be gradually phased out in favor of a plan that gives the taxpayer more options with his income.
If Romney thinks he’s scored by an unforced error by Perry, he’s mistaken.
asinine. I really do not want him to be the candidate.
I’ve known Social Security was doomed since I was in my early 20s and I’m now in my mid-40s. I’m glad to see straight talk about it from Perry. If Romney thinks attacking Perry over this is a winning issue, he is possibly delusional.
Romney’s weakness is ObamneyCare. If he can paint Perry as supporting such an approach, too, he neutralizes his greatest handicap. It’s very do-able. When faced with a choice between two such candidates, then we choose based on other things.
Let me help you out, Romney, even though I will never, ever vote for you. We are only considering Perry, because this election is about jobs. Jobs is Perry’s schtick. He is a one-trick pony, but it is a very good trick.
However, the Presidency is more than just jobs. He is responsible for foreign affairs. Perry, like Bush before him, was a mediocre student in a good school. (Release your transcripts, Romney. I am betting they are pretty good.) This lack of scholarship leads to a lack of knowledge of foreign affairs. Perry stumbles when asked such things, as did Bush before him. They are/were both ignorant of anything outside Texas, which is not good enough for the rest of the country. We do not need a stumbling-Bush redux in foreign affairs.
Of course, Perry served in uniform, while Romney didn’t, so it is kinda hard to go there. That’s another reason I do not support Romney. Of our Presidents, only Clinton (the draft dodger) and Obama (the Muslim Madrass guy) have never served in uniform. I want my President to have served, unless it is a woman. (Only in more recent years have women been serving more, so I have to kinda give them some slack.)
Were it not for the jobs issue, we would not be considering Perry at all. Not at all. He’s a slightly more Conservative Bush.
We don’t have to kill Social Security, we have to “Evolve” it. At 68 I an set or locked up. I’ve got a daughter in her mid twenties, as a society I, you, we, and her cannot afford NOT to evolve SS.
Fight over the age point or the date for the change, fighting to keep SS as it now exists takes the Law Of Diminishing Returns to new places!
Check “6″