Rick Perry’s gaffe, Mitt Romney’s answer, main moments of latest GOP debate
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With an epic gaffe, Rick Perry last night removed one of the legs beneath his already-wobbly presidential campaign. With a fresh answer, Mitt Romney may have shored up his own base as he powers on in the race for the 2012 Republican nomination.
Perry went blank while announcing the three federal agencies he would target to tame the budget deficit. “Oops,’’ he proclaimed after stammering for 43 seconds, trying to recall the third one. It was a serious if not fatal blow to his candidacy that underscored how defining this series of nonstop debates has become.
[fragment number=1]Romney, meanwhile, finally found a plausible retort to charges that he is a chronic flip-flopper who lacks a core. He takes confidence in such stock responses, as evidenced by his immediate pivot to accusing the Obama administration of being “the most political presidency we have seen in modern history.’’
Coming just before Perry began his embarrassing stumble, Romney’s explanation highlighted how the debates continue to show his presidential timber while raising doubts about Perry’s.
Herman Cain was on stage, too, and happily faced just one question about the sexual harassment charges that have plagued his campaign for the past week-and-a-half.
Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann also participated, but Romney’s high and Perry’s low were the enduring story of the CNBC debate at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.
“Commerce, Education, and the, uh, what’s the third one?’’ Perry said as he pointed to his head while trying to recall the third federal agency he rails against every day on the stump.
When Romney helpfully offered, “The EPA,’’ the Texas governor glanced over thankfully before coming to his senses, waving off his rival, and attempting to move on.
Yet co-moderator John Harwood, a veteran of The Wall Street Journal who now works for both The New York Times and CNBC, seized the moment and would not let it pass so quickly.
“Seriously? Is EPA the one you were talking about?’’ he asked.
Perry replied, “No sir, no sir,’’ again seeming to wish the moment would end.
“You can’t name the third one?’’ Harwood again said.
Perry, now seeming to see his political life flashing before his eyes, replied, “The third agency of government I would do away with (pause), the Education, the, uh, Commerce, and, let’s see (pause), I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry.’’
Then, “Oops.’’
“Whoops,’’ may have been more appropriate.
In isolation, Perry’s lapse could be explained, as spokesman Ray Sullivan said after the governor himself visited the post-debate spin room, as an “error of style, not substance.’’
It could also be attributable to the “long lulls’’ Sullivan cited as eight candidates vied for time in a debate lasting a little more than 90 minutes.
In addition, the lapse could be proof, as Sullivan said of Perry, that “he’s a real human being, he’s not a robot.’’
But that spin ignores the accumulation of doubts about Perry’s smarts, deftness, and stability since announcing his candidacy in early August.
First, he tanked in not one but virtually all of a rapid-fire series of September debates. He recovered slightly during a meeting in Las Vegas in October, a session where Romney became unhinged as Perry attacked him over illegal immigration and other issues.
But then Perry subsequently delivered a speech to New Hampshire activists that was so animated, so meandering, he and his aides had to later deny he was both drunk and under the influence of drugs.
The tape of it became a YouTube classic. It also was the basis for an anti-Perry skit this past weekend on “Saturday Night Live,’’ never the preferred place for someone mounting a serious bid for the highest office in the land.
Last night, though, it was eclipsed by another tape that was on YouTube even before the debate ended.
Contrast that answer with Romney’s response to an inevitable question after his recent high-profile flip-flop on an Ohio ballot question focused on collective bargaining.
Romney supported it in June but had no opinion on it last month – as he left after rallying volunteers at a phone bank trying to generate support for that very question.
Again, it was Harwood who got to the heart of the matter, pivoting from a question about Romney’s seemingly shifting views on an auto industry bailout to a query about whether he lacked a core.
It has been a charge that has dogged him since Romney abandoned his 1994 and 2002 support for abortion rights, his 2003 backing for a regional greenhouse gas pact, and the endorsement of gay rights he expressed during his 1994 Senate campaign and 2002 candidacy for Massachusetts governor.
Romney replied this time: “I have been married to the same woman for 25 – excuse me, I will get in trouble – for 42 years. I have been in the same church my entire life. I worked at one company, Bain, for 25 years. And I left that to go off and help save the Olympic Games.’’
Finding his sealegs, he continued, “I think it is outrageous the Obama campaign continues to push this idea, when you have in the Obama administration the most political presidency we have seen in modern history. They are actually deciding when to pull out of Afghanistan based on politics.’’
Then, Romney added a red-white-and-blue coda: “Let me tell you this, if I’m president of the United States, I will be true to my family, to my faith, and to our country, and I will never apologize for the United States of America. That’s my belief.’’
Surely a segment of the population, many of it Democrats or Obama supporters, will question the genuineness of the answer. But that does not matter to Romney in this campaign.
Just as he had previously codified answers for conflicting views about abortion, gay rights, and health insurance mandates, Romney has now developed an answer for the overarching charge each component fuels: that he lacks a core.
That he even cited his church – something, as a Mormon, he has been loath to do – underscored Romney’s commitment to this new explanation.
Then, as he did in the final portion of his answer last night, Romney showed the power such touchstones have given him.
No longer on the defensive – at least in his mind – he went on the attack.
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