Rick Perry’s Debate Performance

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Allow me to be charitable…it was awful.

Maet was kind enough to link a piece I wrote at my own little blog last night that laid out my concerns with Perry prior to the debate. Clearly nothing he did last night improved my opinion of Perry.

First let me say…I don’t give a damn about how many shots he was able to land on Mitt or wasn’t able to land. That’s simply the game that these “debates” set up. Being President has nothing to do with scoring “debate” points. It has to do with the ability to layout a vision, build the necessary political coalitions to bring them to fruition and then implement the relevant polices. Candidates sparring over what was in the others book doesn’t really tell you much about their ability to do any of that.

What really bothered me about Perry? Two things stood out.

First, immigration. Perry seemed defensive and thin skinned when he was challenged on his support for the Texas DREAM Act. As I’ve said before, there may well be a valid public policy basis for Texas’ program. For some reason Perry chose not to make it but rather he fell back a cheap line of attack that would make Lindsey Graham proud.

 

“I supported Arizona’s immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it. Every day I have Texans on that border that are doing their job. But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society. I think that’s what Texans wanted to do.”

Really? You can’t have a good faith difference of opinion with Perry on this, you simply don’t have a heart? Got it.

The second major problem with Perry was his answer to a question about what he would do if as President he got a 3am phone call saying terrorists had gotten control of Pakistan’s nukes. His response was…baffling.

Well, obviously before you ever get to that point, you have to build a relationship in that region. That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Just yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with, and that’s a terrorist group, directly associated with the Pakistani country. To have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States. For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16s, we chose not to do that. We did the same thing with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them. Today, we don’t have those allies in that region that can assist us if that situation that you talked about were to become a reality.

“Haqqani has been involved with, and that’s a terrorist group, directly associated with the Pakistani country”. Non-responsive and gibberish.

As for this idea the chose not to sell F-16’s to India, that’s simply wrong. They rejected our proposal.

FTR- I’m pretty sure the right answer here something along the lines of, “As President I’d make sure the military has contingency plans for just this scenario. In fact, I imagine they already do. In my administration, we will ensure that our military has the proper resources to deal with such a crisis and I will not hesitate to do whatever is necessary to prevent terrorists from getting nuclear weapons and failing that, make sure they do not have the chance to use them on us or our allies”.

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Perry has missed the bus on illegal aliens completely. He has still not realized that many Americans have their eyes wide open to many, if not all of the issues that involve money, and social issues. Immigration is just one of those issues. Politicians are finding out that they may actually have to do something about the open borders, instead of using free education, health care, and other entitlements to entice thousands of illegal aliens to make the journey to American to share in all the free goodies. I could never vote for an individual that tells me that I have no heart because I want my children to have more rights than an illegal alien from any country. That my children and grandchildren will work full-time and go to college and pay their way, while an IA can go to school for free, go the emergency room for free, and can enroll in a number of other governmental programs to receive aid. Its past insane, its absurd. Laws and bills like this can only exist in a government that has lost all common sense, and moral responsibility to its own citizens. And yes he did not look just uptight, and angry, but he was angry. I don’t care for either Rommey, and or Perry. But now Perry is out of the question for sure for me and many others as well. And that leaves Rommey, unless Bachman or Cain can pull off a miracle. Or dare I say, that Palin jumps in. Oh! How I wish! Can you imagine how she would not only upset the apple cart, but turn that baby over!

Gary I too would love to see Palin get in. Great sport and probably secures nom for Romney.

Now there is talk surfacing on Newsmax that Christie may throw his hat in the ring in the next couple of weeks. That would make for an interesting addition.

That’s some spot on analysis, Curt.

Perry fumbled the ball on a number of occasions, and as the debate wore on, seemed to fade and lose focus. Your putative answer to the “3am phone call” question is light years ahead of Perry’s meandering political response. Of course we should have strong relations with our allies in the region. But we should also already have multiple contingency plans in place for just such an occurrence, ie. terrorists acquiring Pakistani nukes, and I’m fairly certain the Pentagon has already assessed the probability of such and event and planned accordingly. Perry might have mentioned that.

Even worse was his accusation that those who disagreed with his instate tuition policy for illegal aliens “have no heart”. What a blatant attempt to emotionalize the issue. But lest you believe that was just a slip of the tongue, Perry used exactly that line of attack against the opponents of of his executive order mandating Gardasil vaccine for all preteen girls in the state of Texas.

Perry lost a lot of ground due to that weak debate performance. His star has already begun to fade. So who will the GOP brass trot out next to keep Palin out of the race? Will it be Christy’s turn next for fall upon the sacrificial sword?

We can only wait and see, and oh yes…

Get the popcorn ready!

@Richard Wheeler: It would be the most exciting race in history, not to take away from Ronnie either!

Christie needs to stay in NJ. What works for him there will not work on the National stage.