Republican Debate Boosts Obama Re-Election Chances

Dems Hope Debate Had Wide Audience

One of the many reasons why Mr. Obama should not have tried to schedule his jobs address at the same time as a Republican debate is that his re-election largely depends on the largest possible exposure to the Republican candidates having to talk without a prepared script.  The debate Monday night in Florida was ample evidence of this.  It is not an unfair generalization to say that the candidates were mostly uninformed, insenstive and presented generally ugly argument devoid of logic and reason.

The debate has also established that Texas Gov. Rick Perry will be attacked on three issues.  The first is his position on Social Security where he seems to question the programs validity and legality.  The second and third are surprisingly enough where Mr. Perry is closer to the political center than his opponents.  On immigration Mr. Perry does not support a border fence and implemented policy to allow illegal immigrants (read children brought to this country by their parents) to have in-state tuition. On health care Mr. Perry sought to have young girls vaccinated against a form of cancer.

The unexpected issue of the campaign against Mr. Perry is the requirement that young girls be vaccinated against cervical cancer.  Mr. Perry has been accused of two things in this area, making government force inoculation on young girls and doing so in part as a favor to the pharmaceutical company that produced the vaccine. 

Two notable things came out of the debate.  The first is how ungracious the candidates are.  The vicious character of Conservatives was center stage.  On the vaccination issue

Mrs. Bachmann said: “To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong.”

thus raising the spectre of three or four government thugs holding down a 12 year old girl while a heartless government doctor “injected” her.  What an ugly image.


On immigration, the criticism former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania suggested an ulterior motive for Mr. Perry’s allowing children who graduated Texas schools but were illegally here because of their parents, who brought them to this nation,

“Maybe that was an attempt to attract illegal — I mean Latino — voters,” Mr. Santorum said.

Thus uttering the crowd pleasing sentiment for Tea Party Conservatives that all Latino’s are here illegally. 

The second notable news to come out of the debate was how ill-prepared Mr. Perry was.  The issues he would face had been telegraphed in his first debate.  He knew he would be questioned on the three critical issues listed above.  Yet for some reason he seemed more unprepared than he was in the first debate. 

But it will be interesting to see if Mr. Perry was badly hurt with respect to his ultra Conservative base.  Much of the criticism of Mr. Perry is like this.



If Perry thinks he’s gonna win the 2012 presidential election on a platform of states rights, then he’s even more clueless than his weak debate performance last night suggests

which may be true, but Mr. Perry is not currently running in the general election.  He is running for the nomination of a radically Conservative Republican party. It is not clear those who are commenting on the debate are aware of this.

The next suspense item, whether or not the post-debate opinion polls show decline in Mr. Perry’s support, and if so, who gets the benefit.