September 13th, 2011
Last night was something new in the recent history of presidential debates, I think. I’ve never before seen a debate where the entire field dog-piled on the leader like that. Not in 2008 (on either side), nor 2004 against Dean, nor 2000 against W, or 1996 against Dole or 1992 against Clinton. I don’t know that the big pile-on Perry show means anything; I just don’t think we’ve seen something like it before, where the field doesn’t feel even the slightest need to be fake-pleasant to the leader.
Romney did pretty well, by his standards. But the performance fed into his structural liability as a candidate: Voters don’t quite know what to make of him when he’s sunny and positive. When he goes negative, he’s even more unappealing, because even his attacks are transparently manufactured.
Perry did okay, considering that he had to stand there and take it on the chin for two hours and that the debates are going to be the weakest of his campaign modes. That is, he did okay with one big exception.
I don’t quite get Michelle Bachmann’s strategy of trying to get to the right of Perry by painting him as being somehow inauthentic. Voters might buy that she’s more monolithically conservative than he is, but does she really think she can sell the idea that Perry is a fake–which is what her attacks last night seemed designed to do. I don’t think that dog hunts and, worse, it positions her as a Jacobin who refuses to acknowledge anyone else as a “true” conservative. In the long run, I don’t think that’s where she wants to go.
All of that said, she goaded Perry into one huge mistake, his bizarre, off-putting response that he was “offended” by the insinuation that he could be bought for a mere $5,000 because–hey, didn’t you know?–he raised $30 million.
There’s no way to look at this response that isn’t damning. And her rejoinder about being offended on the part of all the poor, innocent little girls (whose parents couldn’t understand an opt-out) was classic. Memo to RomneyBot 4000: That’s how you go negative.
What Perry should have said was something like this:
“I’ve said I made a mistake. And I’m not afraid to admit it. That’s part of being a leader. Now, I’m glad to know that Michelle has never made any mistakes–and good for her. But maybe if she’d ever been in a position of responsibility where she had to make executive decisions and hard choices, she wouldn’t be so lucky.”
It highlights her weaknesses (that she’s just a backbencher) and it diminishes her, instead of elevating her. Also, it keeps him on the mea culpa line for the HPV issue–which is where he should be, instead of trying to link it up to anti-abortion language.
This isn’t a mortal wound or anything. But it’s a sign of what Perry looks like when things go sideways for him. And its the first moment since he announced where his political instincts have actually been wrong.
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There’s no way for Bachmann not to seem like the “girl” around (most of) those other guys. But that was no way to try. Assuming the role of offended nanny reeks of Bloomberg.
After the field gets winnowed to something manageable, the ultimate winner will be whoever hires Newt as zinger consultant.
Marc Drops September 16, 2011 at 2:41 am
Bachman did one thing right in the debate (she did more than one thing right): She painted Perry as a crony capitalist. It appeared to work until the next day she claimed “someone” in a greeting line told her the HPV vaccine caused this woman’s child severe mental disabilities. Bachman’s story wasn’t backed up and she lost some of the solid momentum she had going for her against Perry. In the end, Perry will rise above the negative claims and probably take the nomination.