For those who are interested in the results of last night’s debate…
Here are POLITICO’s six takeaways from Thursday’s slugfest in Orlando:
Rick Perry is not ready
For debating, anyway. Fortunately for him, there’s a brief lull where he can improve his game in time for the mid-October New Hampshire and Las Vegas face-offs.
But the concern for Perry after three weak debate performances – each one messier than the last – is that primary voters may soon start deciding he’s not ready for Barack Obama either.
Perry simply couldn’t get it done in his third outing on stage with the same rivals he’s faced before (and, for the first time, a giggly Gary Johnson).
Just like at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate – and before another Florida crowd that was prepared to welcome him – the Texas governor seemed ill-prepared, couldn’t land his punches, and he again sagged visibly toward the end, struggling even through a canned slap at Mitt Romney’s flip-flops.
His vague, tripping-across-Asia answer on a hypothetical question about getting the proverbial 3 A.M. call warning of a nuclear-armed Pakistani Taliban regime, won’t make anyone feel safer with him at the helm.
But his comments on immigration will be the ones that are most remembered. During a multi-candidate pile-on, Perry sounded a leftward tone when he suggested people who disagree with him on a particular pro-immigrant policy are lacking a “heart.”
He also stuck by his stand against a border fence, in an exchange in which former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum got the better of him. And his one moment that came close to standing out in a good way – being “lobbied” on the HPV vaccine by a dying 31-year-old – turns out to have been inaccurate.
All of it will serve to harden questions about Perry’s durability. And it raises the stakes for how he performs at the Presidency Five straw poll in Florida on Saturday.
Mitt Romney found an answer to the flip-flopper questions
It’s called Rick Perry.
Romney sought to turn his opponent’s straight-talking strength into a weakness by questioning whether Perry himself was the true flip-flopper.
Romney’s simply better at the debate game and it showed in various exchanges with Perry.
“Nice try,” was Romney’s rebuttal to Perry at two different points, before he turned the question to his advantage.
He didn’t take the chunk he wanted out of Perry on the issue of Social Security—and he got a bit mealy-mouthed during an answer about whether he supports President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education initiative. (Suggesting Gary Johnson’s dogs as his running mate wasn’t exactly a home run either).
And there is some level of risk for Romney, who sometimes offers answers that are reminiscent of John Kerry’s “smart-kid-in-the-class” performances from the 2004 cycle. While his aggressiveness with Perry has generally served him well, when delivered with too much eagerness it can be grating.
Nonetheless, what Romney needs is to steadily advance and hope that Perry sinks, and each debate has been a step toward that goal.
Rick Santorum has eclipsed Michele Bachmann
Of the fighters on the undercard, Santorum was last night’s winner.
Armed with little by way of resources and a mere fourth-place Ames Straw Poll finish, Santorum has nonetheless been taking every opportunity to make himself more of a presence in the GOP race.
On Thursday, he dominated during the parts of the debate when Romney didn’t.
Related articles
- Rick Perry Gets Into Immigration Scuffle With Mitt Romney And Rick Santorum At Fox/Google Debate (mediaite.com)
- Reaction to the GOP Debate (politicalwire.com)
- Rick Perry Blindsided Again In Debate On Immigration, Rick Santorum Has Big Night (huffingtonpost.com)
- GOP Debate: Perry, Romney and Authenticity (abcnews.go.com)
- Four things we learned from Thursday’s GOP debate (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
