[free me]

The post’s house “conservative” Rubin’s take on the debate

[xjcsa]

He took hits on his views on Social Security and on mandatory HPV testing...

"Testing"? If you're going to write about this stuff, you should go to the trouble of having some idea what you're talking about. In reality the HPV thing was neither "mandatory" nor "testing."

[no dems]

I agree with Jennifer Rubin's assessment; except I would have inclued Newt in the list of those with solid performances. Actally, I thought everyone gave a solid performance except Perry. He got his butt kicked; he was not prepared for this Debate.

[RobbyS]

Perry’s take on global warming is exactly right. The science is not settled. We simply do not know the mechanism for climate change. Certainly the huge changes of the past 1000 years were not effected by human activity. Not 800 years ago, Southern California was a barren desert much like Nevada and there was no snow cover at all for the mountaiins. At the very same time, Europe was warmer than its is today. Then withoin a hundred years the climate in both places changed. The climate in S. California became cooler and wetter and that of Europe did also. The little ice age is wellknow to European hiustory. Then in the 18th century it began to warm again. It is well known that London today does not experience the winters that Dickens describes.

[3Fingas]

This was "Bash Rick Perry Night". The moderators gave him a bunch of leading questions designed to make him look like an ignorant hick (in yankee parlance.... I should know I used to be one...a yankee, that is). At no time before the anointed one was elected president, did the MSM challenge Obama like they have Perry or any of the other GOP candidates.

Anyhow, I thought Perry's performance was O.K., but he probably can and will do a lot better in the future. He should have been better prepared last night to answers questions about his book because the media would like to make that the focus of the campaign and not the economic performance of Texas (and Rick Perry's stewardship of it).

I think most of us here on Free Republic would agree with Perry's assertions that, "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme", and that there is "no conclusive evidence to prove that man is responsible for global warming". However, to a large group of easily frightened senior citizens and wishy-washy people in the middle, these statements, without the benefit of a more lengthy explanation, scare the hell out of them or confirm the biases they may have about Southerners in general, and Texans, in particular. Perry should explain that he advocates a different retirement process for the future, but will take action to shore up the current system for those who have retired or are near retirement. As for the global warming, Perry should simply say that this a matter for climatoligists to figure but he's is skeptical of the evidence he has seen to date.

In style, I think Mitt Romney did very well, but we all know that he is just a very polished politician who will say almost anything to get elected. He does not have very deep nor consistent political convictions.

Perry will have to pick up him game a little bit more and answer questions more completely, so as to avoid be labeled and characitured by the MSM as a "Wacky Right-wing ignoramus."