Debate Thoughts

1.  Romney won the argument on Social Security.  He just won it in the wrong major party.  Same thing with Perry on immigration policy.

2.  Perry’s policy on Social Security seems to be that Social Security is an inviolable Ponzi scheme covenant for current recipients and an unconstitutional program that needs to be made fiscally sustainable for younger workers.  That might actually be the sweet spot in the Republican primaries.  Those who want some kind of Social Security are reassured that it will still be there if Perry is elected.  And there is a constituency that could live with a reformed federal-level Social Security system if someone would just tell them that they had been right all along and FDR was very, very wrong.

3.  I think Huntsman is there to make Ron Paul look less socially inept.  You see Romney wrote (or anyway published under his name) a book called “No Apologies.”  Huntsman wondered if Kurt Cobain was involved.  Nirvana had a song named “All Apologies.”  Zing!  Huntsman is especially hard to watch because he seems to be under the false impression that he is cool. 

4.  I’m not sure that Romney’s points about all the advantages Perry had in Texas (a Republican legislature etc.) add up to a reason to vote against Perry.  Romney’s point seemed to be that if you want American to be more like Texas, you shouldn’t elect the guy from Texas, you should elect the guy from Bain Capital.  Or something.

5.  The Federal Reserve discussion was in crazyland.  You wouldn’t know that our annual inflation rate has been less than 3% for the last couple of years.  This is Glenn Beck’s most lasting legacy.  We have high unemployment, low inflation, and a monetary policy debate focused on stopping the inflation we aren’t having.

6.  Bachmann went really hard at Perry over the HPV thing and she decisively won the exchange with the help of Rick Santorum.  She attacked Perry on the crony capitalist thing (he had gotten a campaign contribution from the vaccine producer and a former Perry aide worked for the company) and the big intrusive government thing.  She baited Perry into  saying  ”The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended. “  That line would have worked a lot better if Perry had been running for governor of Louisiana pre-Katrina.  It set up a hard Bachmann counterpunch and that line is going to get thrown in his face again.

7.  The live audience came in really wanting to like Perry.  When he said that he wanted to have a “conversation” on Social Security (as a way of avoiding having to talk about either his past statements or nonexistent current policy proposals), and Romney pointed out that they were having a conversation, the crowd booed Romney.  This told me a couple of things:

a)  The crowd had come in liking Perry better and, were rooting for the home team in the first major exchange.

b)  For much of the live audience, ritualistic denunciations of Social Security that are divorced from concrete reform proposals are what the Social Security “conversation” is all about.  Social Security denunciations are a signal of  group membership and cross examining the assumptions behind those denunciations are a sigh of the outsider. 

8.  Undermining Perry is going to be a process rather than an event.  The crowd booed Perry when he came out in favor of in state tuition for illegal immigrants and against an extensive border fence.  Partly it was Perry taking on the policy preferences of the live audience.  I suspect it was also partly the result of Perry taking shot after shot about how conservative he isn’t on issues like taxes, borrowing, and the many tangled issues relating to the HPV thing.  

9.  Bachmann decisively won every exchange with Perry, but she is facing a numbers game on the right.  Perry was being ganged up on from his right flank by Bachmann, Santorum, and Paul.  That was bad for Perry because he took a lot of fire.  But what if Perry starts bleeding some of his more conservative authenticity-focused supporters?  If Perry’s former supporters divide between Bachmann, Santorum, and Paul, Perry could still retain enough support to win Iowa and maybe deal a fatal blow to the viability of the right-of-Perry candidates.  If Bachmann can’t beat Perry in Iowa, is she going to beat him in South Carolina?  Bachmann needs to consolidate the right-of-Perry vote and the same candidates who are helping her attack Perry as an inauthentic conservative are also fighting her for the same pool of (potentially) wavering Perry supporters.

10.  I though Perry had a tough night.  There were moments he seemed visibly humbled, but I thought he showed a surprising amount of poise considering he was receiving so many attacks from so many directions.  He needs to go back to school on some of his answers.  He needs to go after Bachmann based on his record as a conservative executive vs. her as a loudmouth backbench failure/self-promoter.  Based on this debate, there is no reason to expect that Romney and especially the right-of-Perry candidates are going to go any easier on Perry at next week’s debate and not every avenue of attack against Perry has been exhausted.