Now keep in mind that this was written by über righty douchebag John Podhoretz of the NY Post, but it seems Perry got very high marks for last night's debate.
A national Republican star is bornJohn Podhoretz, New York Post
Anyone hoping or fearing that Rick Perry would crash and burn in his first GOP debate last night can either feel depressed or rest easy.
In his debut on the national stage, Perry proved he possesses a somewhat indefinable star quality -- exactly what Republicans were distressed to feel was missing from the field.
That quality emanated from him even when he struggled with difficult questions about his views on climate change and Social Security that present complex electoral challenges for him and his party in a national race. He knew when to speak strongly and when to underplay.
At the outset, he delivered a strong jab to Mitt Romney’s job-creation record in Massachusetts quietly and offhandedly -- his almost diffident demeanor serving as cover for the shiv he was sticking in his rival.
But he was unhesitating when asked by Brian Williams at the end if he lost sleep over the number of people executed in Texas. Perry said plainly that those charged with capital crimes go through the legal process, their cases then go through an appellate process all the way to the Supreme Court -- and if all of that stands, the message is that if you kill a child or a police officer, you will face the ultimate justice.
It was a perfect answer.
What was not a perfect answer was his reply to the gotcha question from John Harris of Politico about which specific scientists he had consulted on the question of whether global warming was man-made. He repeated the contention that the science was not settled, but in speaking on the issue, he looked lost and angry.
More important is that Perry’s entire political rationale is that he is the guy who can get the country’s economy growing again. And said (ineloquently) last night is that the demands of the global-warming crowd make that task all but impossible. And that is unquestionably true.
The real controversy arose from his decision not to run from the attack he launched on Social Security in his 2010 book “Fed Up,” but rather to say that politicians need to be honest about the Ponzi-scheme nature of the old-age pension system.
Romney immediately responded: “You can’t say that” about a system on which so many people depend. Perry answered that it is a Ponzi scheme and we have to stop lying to people in their 20s that all the money they are paying into the system will be there when they retire.
He’s right -- it is a Ponzi scheme. The challenge for Romney now will be making the case to primary voters that it will be fatal for the GOP’s shot at denying Barack Obama a second term to have a candidate who calls it a Ponzi scheme. He’ll have a strong case to make.
But there is something striking in the contrast between the two men. Romney looks like a casting director’s idea of a president, and after running for the office for four years solid now, he has an enviable fluency and command of the stage.
Alas for him, there’s a reason he was unable to solidify his own status as a front-runner: He just doesn’t seem to have “it” -- that elusive quality populist politicians who find a connection with ordinary voters seem to possess.
Whatever his failings, and they may well be vast, Perry does have “it.” In terms of sheer presence, he diminished Romney and everybody else on stage last night -- and he left Michele Bachmann, his only real rival for the Tea Party vote, in the dust.
From here on in, it’s just Perry and Romney. There’s little point in having anyone else on that stage any longer except as comic relief.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
Read more:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/na...M#ixzz1XNFnOEvB
