One of the good things the Gardasil debate is going to do is take the sting out of the claim that he’s “anti-science”.
Oh, from a general election perspective, EVERY THING he is being attacked on now is golden. IF he gets through the republican primary, how are the democrats going to attack him on improving a vaccine list for children, for showing a small modicum of compassion for kids who are culturally american and have no “home country”, or for not treating muslim americans as if they are pariahs who should be forcibly evicted from the country?
Romney had similar advantages in 2008, but conservatives could never get over the suspicion that he was actually as liberal as he looked.
Perry is lightyears more conservative in his actual record than Romney ever was. That’s why his opponents have had to cook up a whole new standard of “if he took campaign contributions, he’s corrupt”, and attacking him for signing a bill in 2001 that was voted near-unanimously by the legislature that represented the people being taxed, for an ill-fated attempt to add a vaccine to a list (the attempt failed, and nothing ever happened), and for attending the groundbreaking of a mosque, because apparently conservatives want to prohibit the wrong religions from building worship centers.