Posted on 10/30/2011 12:21:46 PM PDT by smoothsailing
October 30, 2011
These days, no news is good news for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. In the first two months of his presidential campaign, Perry's media appearances have been associated with blunders, a big reason why he quickly tumbled from frontrunner status to the back of the pack in polls. But in an extended interview with Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace this morning in Austin, Perry was able to stay completely on message and was unrattled by critical questions about his campaign and policy proposals.
“I’ve laid out a plan, and I’ve got the record and courage to put that in place,” Perry told Wallace, getting at the heart of the case for his candidacy. The clear message was that his new tax and spending plan was superior to Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan while his record as a conservative governor in Texas and willingness to stick to his principles makes him a better choice than Mitt Romney.
“I have been a consistent conservative," Perry said. "I have always been in favor of the Second Amendment, protecting the Second Amendment, I’ve always been pro-life. I’ve always been a fiscal conservative. And Mitt’s been on both sides of those issues. He’s been for a ban on guns in Massachusetts. He’s been for pro-abortion. He’s been for supporting gay rights and now, he’s on the other side of those issues.”
When Perry released his plan this week, one question was whether he'd be able to defend it in interviews and debates. At least this morning, he was able to deflect Wallace's challenges to it, at least in a way that would reassure conservative primary voters.
For instance, when asked if his plan would blow a hole in the federal budget given that it would slash revenues, Perry talked about the economic growth that would help generate revenue and the spending cuts that would accompany lower taxes.
When Wallace followed up by asking the usual trap question for Republicans about what specific area they would cut, Perry noted that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had released a plan detailing $9 trillion in possible cuts, and then explained a specific education reform that would save $25 billion.
Policy analysts would quibble -- it would have been better had he spoken about how to reform Medicare, which is the biggest problem facing our nation's long-term budget outlook. But the point is, agree or disagree, he did provide cogent answers to questions about his plan.
This leaves us with the following questions about his candidacy: can Perry replicate this performance in the coming months, most importantly, in upcoming debates? And even if he does drastically improve as a candidate, has he already dug himself too deep of a hole to recover? A Des Moines Register poll taken this morning shows Cain at 23 percent, Romney at 22 percent and Perry in fifth place with just 7 percent.
Time left until smoothsailing's next Perry campaign thread:
18 minutes 45 seconds.
I'm done on this thread, clearly it's just not worth it.
Ah, the renowned and magical Herman Cain humor! :)
When he can't spell! :)
I hear ya.
He did apologize. He said he should not have said that people didn’t have a heart. I sincerely hope you will give him more consideration. He mentioned something I did not know: that the fed. govt. requires the states to educate children born here of illegals. He’s saying the feds refuse to deal with illegals at their level and expect the states to educate them. I do know that ICE doesn’t do a da** thing.
Peace
Do you have any real Conservative arguments to support your candidate or is your so weak that you have to resort to childish bullshit?
This is FR not DUmmieland.
The honesty and loyalty that both Perry and Romeny exhibit for their dangerously stupid ideas, in-state-tuition and RomenyCare respectively, is refreshing.
And very Walter Mondale-like.
I’m watching a rerun right now. I am not impressed. He answers different questions, looks uncomfortable.
And I think he DID make something of a gaff when after letting him go on about how unwise it for the federal government to subsidize private industry he was shown that he supported a federal subsidy for a nuclear plant in taxes.
Abada bada uhhhh, I’ve learned a lot since then.
Great summary.
he was very strong today on POLCIES AND ACTION PLANS AND THE CONSERVATIVE PHILOSPHY!
Exactly!
Like, this is big news! Perry went 26 minutes without making a gaffe!
Lordy.
Not quite right. A SCOTUS decision required American citizens to fund, through their taxes, the education of children of illegals on the elementary and secondary levels.
There is no "fed. govt." requirement that we fund their COLLEGE education too.
Frank Luntz was on Hannity the next day talking about the focus group reaction to that very incident between Perry and Romney.
Luntz said the focus group absolutely HATED it, they thought Perry looked obnoxious and petty. It turned them off of Rick BIG-TIME.
Bears repeating.
Oh, and don't cry about how no one wants to address the merits of your guy's plan, or whatever. Then when they do address the merits with constructive criticism, post back to them garbage such as, essentially, "why won't you just accept what this author is saying, that the plan is great? Do you not like the author?"
No, I'm not kidding.
And it just gets embarrassing after a while.
I mean, you post your reasoned objections to the guy's plan. And the response you get has nothing to do with addressing your reasoned objections.
Instead, it's something about how ignorant you are for not just accepting some dude's analysis that the plan is fantastic on all accounts.
That's just weird.
LOL!
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