Rick Perry, bloodied but unbowed in GOP debate | Ana Marie Cox

He complained of being a piñata last time. This time, Perry was the punchbag – and it was Michele Bachmann landing the blows Mitt Romney’s dogged professionalism has mostly been a problem for him in the political world. The same smooth, practised charm – unleavened with not-obviously-practised sense of humour – that reassures investors can strike voters as forced and fake. But give him this: he is an avid student of his own mistakes, and every debate thus far has seen him stretch his emotional range a little. In his tussles with Rick Perry Monday evening (and there were several), he may have even gotten the needle to something like “testy!” His awkwardness with humour and unsubtle way with metaphor still give the impression of someone trying too hard. He tends to pile on figures of speech like an insecure college student: it’s a pay phone world versus smart phone world! Quarters! Being dealt aces! Someone in the Romney campaign was, apparently, an English lit major. But such enthusiasm is probably preferable to the stance so often taken by political candidates in search of a personality: approval-grubbing like a high school principal trying to be cool. Speaking of which, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman continued his campaign for the hipster vote with a reference to Kurt Cobain that might as well have been spoken in that Mandarin he’s so fluent in for all the sense and impact it made. See, Romney’s campaign pamphlet-cum-book was called “No Apologies”, and Cobain wrote a song called “All Apologies”, and Romney is a fecund Mormon and Cobain was a nihilistic heroin addict who committed suicide, so … erm? But at least we know what to gift Huntsman on iTunes! For all his improvements, though, this was not a Romney crowd. CNN decided to co-sponsor the debate with one of the few quasi-legitimate organisations that can claim to represent the “Tea Party” – Sal Russo’s the Tea Party Express . Romney’s relationship to the Tea Party is uncomfortable at best; in the last debate, he dodged a question about being a member of the group – or even agreeing with them: “I don’t think you carry cards in the Tea Party.” He chuckled at his own joke, but no one else did. The avid conservatism of the Tea Party, and the crowd, made for a debate much friendlier to the race’s less likely contenders: Ron Paul – in a too-large suit that only emphasised how lost he can seem when confronted with issues of actual governance – got warm responses for his talk about getting the government out of, well, everything. Rick Santorum was positively graceful in asserting his right to be on the stage. And Michele Bachmann, founder of Congress’s “Tea Party Caucus”, was especially in her element. She attacked Perry with gusto – and actual information – over his approval of mandatory HPV vaccination: the connection between Perry and the drug company that manufactures the vaccine sometimes gets lost in the hand-wringing over “forced injections to 12-year-old girls”, but it didn’t tonight. Perry’s response to Bachmann’s needling showed his weakness as a candidate: he was defensive and repeated himself. He seems to want to focus on being the frontrunner yet not have to do the work to get there. Romney can try to tag Perry as a professional politician, but it’s Mitt that seems to have the polish and finesse (if also a feeling of rote memorisation) that comes with having done a national campaign before. Perry can’t quite get the smirk off his face when he’s not actually speaking. He seems to alternate between rogueish charm and cocky impetuousness. And then there are his policies, which seem to be undergoing a similar vacillation. He can’t decide whether he wants to hang Ben Bernanke or diplomatically show him the door, compare social security to a con game or talk soberly about reforming it. The good news for Perry, if not for us, is that he’s going to get a lot more practice in performing the part of a candidate: there are 11 more of these debates to go before we ever get to New Hampshire and an actual vote cast. Republicans US elections 2012 US politics Rick Perry Mitt Romney Ron Paul Michele Bachmann Newt Gingrich Jon Huntsman Tea Party movement CNN US television United States Ana Marie Cox guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 14, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.