There are very few people that I truly admire in the political world. There are even less that I consider to be my heroes, but Andrew Breitbart was one of the few names that qualified in both categories.  I won’t get into details here, but he inspired me to completely change the trajectory of my life. Breitbart would often make remarks trying to downplay his intelligence, but the truth is that he was brilliant. He was playing a game of chess with the political landscape of this country, and he did it using the left and media as his pawns.  He would orchestrate their mistakes and leave us with an easy opening in a way that no one else could.  I said in a tweet that Breitbart RT’ed that you have to look at his actions through the prism presented in the book The Art of War.  He knew we were at war.

He was our leader when we needed one the most.  He was our general and unlike many, he did not just give orders.  Andrew Breitbart was the type of leader that charged against a seemingly unbeatable enemy, knowing that his courage would inspire us to follow. Follow we shall. I don’t know if Andrew Breitbart saved the world, but he just may have saved this country. We are now more united than ever.  We are more energized than ever.  We are ready to take up his cause.

We won’t forget Andrew Breitbart.  History won’t forget Andrew Breitbart. And with all of the conservative soldiers that he has inspired, the left will never forget Andrew Breitbart.

Rest in Peace, Andrew.  We got this.

A personal aside: I only met Andrew Breitbart at this year’s CPAC, but his actions and words meant more to me than he could possibly know.  The best example is from one of those meetings at CPAC.  On one of the days, I went outside of the hotel around dinner time and saw a group of about 15 occupiers arguing with some CPAC attendees.  At first, I just took out my phone to record them.  After witnessing the exchanges for a few minutes, I thought to myself #WWABD (What would Andrew Breitbart do)?  I started asking the occupiers questions meant to allow them to expose themselves, a tactic AB would often employ.  I ended up getting into a fierce exchange with them.  People started to gather, cops stood between us and others soon joined in. The exchanged lasted about 40 minutes and I finally got the Occupiers to essentially admit they had no clue what they were protesting. When I finally looked up and started walking away, I realized the number of occupiers had grown to be a few hundred.  I left to my hotel room.  I came down about 25 minutes later to see Andrew Breitbart near the hotel bar.  I was nervous even talking to Andrew, but I was so excited about what had just transpired that I felt like I had to tell him.  I went up to him and he semi-recognized me from the night before when we had briefly met at BlogBash.  He proceeded to make a joke about my name, which happens to be synonymous with a deceased liberal poet.  I told him that I had just been outside arguing with occupy, and he responded that he also “just want out there and yelled at them”.  The exchange he was describing would change the news cycle for weeks to come and put the final nail in the coffin of the Occupy Movement. That moment …  standard at a hotel lobby talking with my hero, Andrew Breitbart, about yelling at Occupy, will always be one of the proudest moments of my life. My only regret is that I will never get to experience more moments like that.

I have said for awhile now that I don’t know who I am voting for and refuse to pick publicly. Instead, I decided I would focus on criticizing each candidate when I felt they were engaging in unfair attacks, and likewise defending each potential nominee when I felt they were being attacked unfairly.  It was for that reason that I criticized Mitt Romney for his critique of Social Security reform/Taxes, Herman Cain for his lack of preparation, Santorum for his pandering on manufacturing, and Rick Perry for his “heartless” comments.  I have legitimately criticized every single candidate at one time or another.  There are some however that may be surprised to hear that I have still not chosen a candidate based on my recent criticism of Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney.  What those people are missing is that I felt I was compelled to engage in that defense in order to remain consistent with the standards I had previously applied.  The actions I have seen from Newt Gingrich and SOME of his supporters over the last few weeks have been wrong and intellectually dishonest.  The reality is that neither Newt Gingrich nor Mitt Romney are very conservative.  Romney’s record leaves voters with many questions as to his conservative nature and several of Newt’s statements raise the same concerns.  With that in mind, there are also very valid reasons to support each (Sorry to leave of Santorum, but my focus here is on the front runners).   Let me start by making the concession that some Romney supporters have gone over the line and essentially questioned the intelligence of anyone who supports Newt.  That is clearly wrong and should be denounced by people on our side.  With that in mind, I have been far more disturbed by the behavior of Newt and SOME of his supporters.  The main reason that I believe Newt is now struggling is his choice to go away from a campaign mostly aimed at Obama and the media and instead engage in clearly leftist attacks against other Republicans.  Newt has attacked Romney on the basis of wealth, venture capitalism and opposition to illegal immigration.  Many of these attacks are directly parroting Think Progress and other leftist outfits, and seriously pushing away informed conservative voters.  Most recently, Newt essentially labeled anyone who opposes some form of amnesty as “uncaring” and “anti-immigrant”.  It is worth reminding readers that Rick Perry’s campaign was severely hurt and he was universally castigated by conservatives for similar remarks.  Yet somehow Newt gets a complete pass for these tactics from SOME supporters.  I was not willing to give him a similar pass, which resulted in accusations from Gingrich supporters that I was not really conservative, I was in the tank for Romney and I was not informed about the issues.  These accusations were ridiculous and offensive, but the cult of personality seems to have surpassed intellectual honesty for some.  If I, Marco Rubio, Phillip Klein and many others are no longer conservatives because we choose to denounce what we see as intellectually dishonest attacks, then the conservative movement has taken a very wrong turn.

A further ridiculous item arising from the Gingrich side is the constant whining about personal and political attacks from Romney, ignoring the fact that Newt is engaging in the same thing.  Gingrich is complaining about PAC’s running dishonest ads, while his PAC is receiving 5 million dollar lump donations to do just that.  It is one thing to make the perfectly legitimate choice to go negative, it is quite another to do that and also complain about your opponent doing the same.  As for the claim that the “establishment” is out to destroy Newt Gingrich, it is a conspiracy theory that is not based in reality. Gingrich has spent most of his life in Washington and has plenty of “Establishment” individuals behind him.  If Newt Gingrich is not part of the establishment, then that word has seemingly lost all meaning.  Finally, the biggest problem I have had with SOME Newt supporters is the constant threats to not vote for Romney if he is the nominee.  I have not seen that from Romney supporters.  Most reasonable conservatives understand the threat that another term for Obama poses and that is enough motivation to vote for a Republican.  Four more years of Obama would mean giving up the Supreme Court, allowing implantation of Obamacare, more trillion dollar deficits and god knows what else from a president that has shown no respect for the separation of powers. Obama would clearly be a disaster, even if he was somewhat gridlocked by a Republican congress.  If that doesn’t motivate you to get out and vote for any Republican nominee this election, then I would seriously question your priorities.

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Romney that conservatives can make in this primary (liberal record in MA, Romneycare etc.). These critiques from the right are perfectly fair and can be a good reason to support another candidate in the primary.  However, engaging in leftist attacks, copying liberal media criticism, and insulting people who disagree with you is not legitimate.  These things hurt the conservative brand and are not worth getting any individual elected.  I expect this stuff from the left, but not from our side.  I would suggest both Newt and his supporters consider that in their future discourse.  Obviously, the same disclaimer exists for Romney and his supporters that choose to do the same.

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Most conservatives know to usually just avoid talking about Ron Paul as to also avoid his delusional followers; but with the debate last night and the recent Iowa polls, I have reached my limit.  First, let me make the obvious concessions that he has SOME good ideas about limiting government and that he is unlikely to win the nomination.  With that in mind, I think it is embarrassing to have this man on the stage and receiving significant consideration from our party.  Others have been through the evidence extensively, but there is no doubt that Ron Paul is a fringe individual.  His racist newsletters (which he now denies he wrote), the conspiracies he promotes, and the veiled anti-Semitism in many of his pronouncements all makes his extremism obvious.  Yet despite these things, he has numerous supporters that defend every statement as if it was written straight into the constitution.  It is almost as if they believe that he is so old that only he can remember what the words were supposed to mean.

Last night, I watched Paul use pure propaganda to defend the most hateful aspects of the Iranian regime without flinching (Really? How much room for interpretation is there to “wipe Israel from the map”?).  He also tried to shift responsibility for innocent deaths from the actual killers onto us.  I know people don’t like to invoke the comparison, but to me this was no different than the extensive defense by many American isolationists of the Nazi regime throughout the 1930’s (before the Holocaust was public knowledge).  We have often made fun of the naiveté of Obama’s foreign policy and yet even he never directly spread false propaganda for our enemies to the same extent that Paul does.  Obama might only ask for a drone back, but Paul seems to want us to hand another one over as an apology.  His views are not only crazy, but they are offensive to anyone that has been affected or understands the threats we face.  I have said before that I would vote for a rock over Barack Obama, but Paul does not even live up to that standard.  Having him on my side is an embarrassment in every respect.  I am embarrassed as a Jew, as a conservative and most of all, as an American.  I understand the desire for a more limited government and a more strategic foreign policy, but that does not justify supporting a complete lunatic.  Once someone like Paul gets legitimacy for their economic views, we are also giving legitimacy to all of their other proclamations.  It is about time that our party leaders stood up and proclaimed that Ron Paul does not represent us and does not belong on that stage.  Otherwise limited government will forever become intertwined with conspiracy theories, racism, anti-Semitism and support for our enemies.

Before you disagree with me, please watch the Hannity interview yesterday and explain how anyone can come to a different conclusion:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drftu8xdsbk (start at about 2 minutes)

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Update:  Glad to see many conservatives are disavowing and exposing Paul.  Here are some examples from the past few days:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/blame_america_first_republican_5mqj6XU1tO0WLPPvWiHedM

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/company-ron-paul-keeps_613474.html

http://www.therightsphere.com/2011/12/pot-meet-kettle/

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/ron-paul-double-standard/265251

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-20/ron-paul-s-ascent-won-t-last-or-help-his-cause-ramesh-ponnuru.html

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2011/12/20/yes-virginia-ron-paul-is-a-911-truther-and-a-coddler-of-racists/

Republican candidates should start challenging the premise of the questions that the biased media asks them.  That does not mean that candidates should avoid policy or questions, but they should be able to expose bias when they face it. Feel free to go on MSNBC, but ask Rachel Maddow why she thinks her job is to cover for failing president while he is golfing?  Ask Chris Matthews why he cares more about keeping Obama in office than the millions of Americans that will remain unemployed as a result?  When reporters ask questions about deficits based on tax cuts, ask them why they are using the economically ignorant premise that tax cuts lead to less revenues? When reporters ask questions associating income inequality and higher taxes on the rich, ask them how the two are even related?  When reporters ask why Republican’s don’t support the president’s jobs plans, ask them why won’t they ask the president why he ignores the 27 Republican job bills passed by the House?

The Republican candidate, whoever they are, needs to understand that the media is not their friend.  We are challenging THEIR guy.  They helped elect Obama, the voted for him, and they covered for him.  They aren’t just going to let him go down without a fight.  The media will try to paint the Republicans as extreme, uncompromising and stupid, so the best solution is to discredit them.  If the public realizes that they cannot trust the media’s perspective, it will surely doom this failing president to a single term in office.

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This is a war and both sides have their own strategic allies.  Liberals have the advantage of a like-minded media to cover for their distortions and promote their policies.  Conservatives have an equally valuable advantage in that we have facts and historical trends on our side.  However, that strategic ally becomes worthless if the people promoting conservatism do not know or cannot explain those facts and trends.  Since conservatism is an ideology based in individualism, we usually do not rely on leaders to form our beliefs. Despite this, we must have leaders that articulate these beliefs and their impact on society so that the voting public can understand them.   It is not conservative advocates that need convincing, it is everyone else. We already have plenty of generals to explain conservatism from outside the system (Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter etc.), but we now require political warriors to fight the battle on the front lines (elections).  The real weapons are words and these warriors must be able to wield these weapons better than their opponents.  That means our candidates must be held to a higher standard than the typical politician or individual.  These warriors must be able to explain to voters that conservatism is the only path forward that will preserve our liberty, economic success and exceptionalism.   They must know the details of how conservatism can be applied to various issues and how that application will benefit individual Americans.  It is great to have conservative candidates running, but that becomes worthless if they can’t win because they do not know how to explain their beliefs to the voters.  I have noticed that many on our side are willing to settle for someone who only fulfills the requirement of having a similar ideology.  If we are going to save our republic, we need to start looking for more than just conservative candidates.  At the very least, we need conservatives who are willing to learn to sharpen their weapons.  More than that, we need conservatives that can make their beliefs appealing to the uninformed voter.  We must do some proper vetting and make sure that by the time we truly engage the left, we have some competent warriors on the front line. Anything short of that is a failure on our part to truly prepare for this battle.

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The United States has long had a policy of not negotiating with terrorists because of the consequences of doing so.  On the other hand, Israel, mostly due to pressure from America and Europe, has spent years doing the exact opposite.  Israel has made agreement after agreement, concession after concession, and sacrifice after sacrifice while negotiating with terrorists in the hopes that it will somehow lead to peace.  Instead, these deals have led to countless Israeli deaths and a continuously growing threat.  The mistake that Israel and the people who try to force more deals upon it make is failing to realize that Israel has no partner for peace.  People forget that the leader of the “moderate” portion of the Palestinian negotiations, Mahmoud Abbas, was the primary funder of the 1972 terrorist attacks in Munich.  For years Israel was negotiating with Yasser Arafat, the godfather of modern terrorism.  Even when there are deals made, the results have always been catastrophic for Israel.  Israel agreed to withdraw from Gaza, following which it was bombarded by thousands of rockets.  Israel allowed the Palestinians to have their own security forces, only to have those forces participate in countless attacks against Israeli civilians. The list goes on and on.  Each time Israel gave up real concessions for the mere promise that it may be allowed to live in peace and each time it was met with more violence. Without going back into the history, it is clear Israel is dealing with people whose only goal is Israel’s destruction.  No concession, short of suicide, will appease the Palestinian leadership.  That is why the so-called “peace process” is absolutely worthless, because Israel is bidding against themselves.  They are negotiating for a chance to give up more concessions in exchange for nothing.  All of this leads me to the recent deal.   Israel will release 1,027 terrorists in exchange for 1 soldier.  Hamas has already announced that they will now target more soldiers for kidnappings.  Israel has once again set a precedent that they will negotiate with terrorists and that terrorist acts will lead to results.  This can only lead to one thing, more terrorism.

The sad reality is that more Israelis will die as a result of this deal.  I do not blame Netanyahu completely and I certainly do not take seriously the criticism from Tzipi Livni (who would have released 3000 terrorists without blinking if she was in charge), but this march towards national suicide has to stop.  At some point there has to be a realization by the Israelis that this path is not bringing them peace and no amount of outrage from the anti-Semitic and judgmental international community justifies the deaths that will result.  For those that pose the ridiculous hypothetical of what if Shalit was in my family? I answer by asking what if the next soldier who is kidnapped because of this deal was in theirs?  Or the next Israeli civilian killed by one of the released terrorists? There are no easy choices when lives are at stake, but decisions do need to be made.  Some have asked me what I would have done if I was the one in charge, I would look to the principle that Israel applied of one Israeli life being equivalent to 1027 Palestinian militants and I would have applied it in reverse.  Israel knows the locations of where most of the Hamas senior leadership lives. I would have sent in the tanks and destroyed house after house and killed militant after militant until Shilat was released, with the warning that if he is harmed than Israel will keep going until 1,027 Hamas militants are killed and 100 Hamas homes are destroyed.  That would establish a new precedent and make Hamas think twice before attempting another kidnapping.  That is how you deal with terrorism.  I hope Israel learns its lesson before it walks too far down the path towards national suicide.

Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every night, ten men go to their favorite bar for beer. The tab for all ten
comes to $100 for ten pitchers. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like
this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh $7.
• The eighth $12.
• The ninth $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every night and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your nightly tab by $20.”

So, now drinks for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their tab the way we pay our taxes.  So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six, the paying customers?

How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share’?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being ‘PAID‘ to drink beer!

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
• The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once drunk and outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up at the bar, so the nine sat down and drank without him. But when it came time to pay the tab, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money  between all of them for
even half of the tab!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up to pick up the tab anymore.

I rarely get seriously angry with politicians, but today is an exception.  I am seriously angry with one politician, and he isn’t on the left.  That politician is Herman Cain.  The reason I am this angry with Cain is because I actually liked him before now. I liked his straightforward style, his economic acumen and his real world experience. Cain was not my first choice for the nomination because of his lack of experience, but I was happy he was in the race and pushing some common sense solutions.  That feeling has completely disappeared this week.

First, I need to provide some background for what led to my anger.  As many of you are aware, the Washington Post ran a despicable smear piece on Rick Perry the other day, one that I will not link to.  Hugh Hewitt has a pretty good response to it here. Just to be clear, the story was not about Rick Perry using the N word or even condoning it, but instead it was about the N word being written on a rock by someone else on a piece of property that Perry’s family has spent time on.  That is like someone being blamed for the thoughts of everyone who has ever owned the house or apartment they are currently residing in.  Many of us have been fighting and speaking out about media bias and the use of the race card against conservatives for years, but this is one of the worst examples I have ever seen.  This really is not about Rick Perry or whether you like him, but instead the general outrage all respectable people should feel about false insinuations of racism.

Most conservatives are tired of being accused of racism for not agreeing with every leftist policy and talking point.  These attempts diminish real racism and create a political environment where policy debates become impossible.  As I have said before, the left now consistently uses the term racist to actually mean someone who opposes their policies.  Those same policies have created a culture of dependency and devastated minority communities for decades.  Herman Cain knows this or at least he should, so I was shocked to see him joining in on the attack against Perry. Obviously, this was a media trap that Cain fell for, but that is no excuse. This morning I made the mistake of turning on CNN where they were pushing this smear against Perry and they used Cain’s comments as evidence that this would be a serious issue for Perry.   Conservatives already have to fight the race card smears by the media and the left; we don’t need to have them confirmed by leaders in our own movement.  Most conservatives will not tolerate the unfair use of the race card against political opponents, which is exactly what Cain did here.  I believe this is a fatal mistake for the Cain campaign and I know I personally cannot respect him after this point unless there is an immediate apology.  Cain said last week that he could not support Rick Perry as the nominee “today”.  Well with his comments this weekend, I cannot today support Herman Cain as the nominee.  We already have one president who plays the race card against political opponents, we don’t need another one.   I will reconsider what I have said here if Cain issues an immediate apology for buying into the smear and promoting it, but thus far it does not seem like one is coming.

Update: It appears Herman Cain has responded to the controversy. While I appreciate him trying to walk back the comments, that is not nearly enough in my opinion.  His comments were much stronger than the walk back and have already been used by the media.  He needs to issue a serious apology and go out of his way to defend Perry at this point.

Paraphrased Q: How would you help small businesses as president?

 Answer: Well, Rick Scott is sitting right over there, and he and I compete every day with trying to get jobs into our states. And what we have done in the state of Texas over the course of the last decade is to lower that tax burden on the small businessmen and women, have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, and sweeping tort reform that we passed in 2003 that told personal injury trial lawyers, don’t come to Texas, because you are not going to be suing our doctors frivolously.

That’s the way you get the government off of the back of small businessmen and women. And that’s the way you free up those small business entrepreneurs, where they know that they can risk their capital and have a chance to have a return on investment.

If it will work in the state of Texas, it will work in Washington, D.C. And that’s exactly what I’m going bring to Washington when I go there in November — or, excuse me, in January of 2013.
Reaction:  Perry should focus more on how he would translate his success in Texas into success for America.  Also, this would have been a good time to mention the repeal of Obamacare, the biggest threat to small business growth in the near future.  In fact, his later answer as to how he would turn the country around would have been perfect here.

Governor Perry, Governor Romney has been hammering you on your idea of turning Social Security back to the states, repeatedly. Can you explain specifically how 50 separate Social Security systems are supposed to work?

PERRY: Well, let me just say first, for those people that are on Social Security today, for those people that are approaching Social Security, they don’t have anything in the world to worry about. We have made a solemn oath to the people of this country that that Social Security program in place today will be there for them.

Now, it’s not the first time that Mitt has been wrong on some issues before. And the bottom line is, is we never said that we were going to move this back to the states. What we said was, we ought to have as one of the options the state employees and the state retirees, they being able to go off of the current system, on to one that the states would operate themselves.

As a matter of fact, in Massachusetts, his home state, almost 96 percent of the people who are on that program, retirees and state people, are off of the Social Security program. So having that option out there to have the states — Louisiana does it, almost every state has their state employees and the retirees that are options to go off of Social Security.

That makes sense. It’s an option that we should have.

ROMNEY: Now, my own view is, that we have to make it very, very clear that Social Security is a responsibility of the federal government, not the state governments, that we’re going to have one plan, and we’re going to make sure that it’s fiscally sound and stable.

And I’m absolutely committed to keeping Social Security working. I put in my book that I wrote a couple of years ago a plan for how we can do that and to make sure Social Security stable not just for the next 25 years, but for the next 75.

Thank you.

PERRY: Speaking of books and talking about being able to have things in your books, back and forth, your economic adviser talked about Romneycare and how that was an absolute bust. And it was exactly what Obamacare was all about.

As a matter of fact, between books, your hard copy book, you said it was exactly what the American people needed, to have that Romneycare given to them as you had in Massachusetts. Then in your paperback, you took that line out. So, speaking of not getting it straight in your book sir, that would be a –
Reaction:  Perry should not have brought up health care here. While the book change was a legitimate attack on Romney, he should have waited for the subject to come up, instead it seems like he is just deflecting from Romney’s criticism.  What Perry should have said is:  I assure you Governor Romney, that I don’t switch my views on issues based on polling, like some politicians. The belief that I was trying to explain in my book and the one that I still have is that Social Security is underfunded and will not be there for our future generations if we do not do something soon.  No one is proposing getting rid of Social Security, especially for current beneficiaries.  Instead of scaring voters for political purposes, we should be putting more ideas on the table as to how to fix the program to give young workers retirement options that they know will still be there when their time comes.

Question on education:

GOV. RICK PERRY, R-TEXAS: There are a lot of good ideas here on the side and whether it is cutting back on the Department of Education, making those types of reductions.

I happen to believe we ought to be promoting school choice all across this country. I think school — the voucher system, charter schools all across this country. But there is one person on this stage that is for Obama’s Race to the Top and that is Governor Romney. He said so just this last week. And I think that is an important difference between the rest of the people on this stage and one person that wants to run for the presidency.Being in favor of the Obama Race to the Top and that is not conservative.
Reaction:  Perry was right about Romney, but that should not have been the focus of over half his answer.  Perry comes off as more concerned with attacking his competition than addressing the question or his own policies.  Perry should have mentioned the benefits of local control as several other candidates did and emphasized his experiences in Texas.  He could have still gotten the dig about race to the top in without focusing on it.

Dave Hollenback (ph) of Arizona sent this “To date, it appears that you have not tried to stop the illegals from coming. We have high unemployment and a considerable amount of jobs going to illegals. Are you going to exert an effort to stop the abuse of U.S. citizens by illegals?”

Now, last year, more than 16,000 children of illegals, young people in Texas, took advantage of your in-state tuition rate. Speak to that issue. And just, generally, how do you feel being criticized by a number of these other candidates on the stage for being too soft on immigration, sir?

PERRY: Well, I feel pretty normal getting criticized by these folks, but the fact of the matter is this: there is nobody on this stage who has spent more time working on border security than I have.

For a decade, I’ve been the governor of a state with a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. We put $400 million of our taxpayer money into securing that border. We’ve got our Texas Ranger recon teams there now. I supported Arizona’s immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it. Every day I have Texans on that border that are doing their job. But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society. I think that’s what Texans wanted to do. Out of 181 members of the Texas legislature, when this issue came up, only four dissenting votes. This was a state issue. Texans voted on it. And I still support it greatly.

My reaction:  This is the issue that I disagree with Perry most on, but in many ways I respect his sticking by his position.  The right thing to do in this answer was to emphasize his strength on immigration security while downplaying the tuition issue as a state issue.  He could also point out the major differences between the federal Dream Act and the one being referred to in Texas.  The real trouble here and the reason that this is probably his worst answer was his use of the word “heartless”.  This is the terminology that liberals typically use against opponents and I suggest Governor Perry apologize for it in a future answer.  The people who disagree with him on tuition for Illegal aliens do so for very legitimate reasons and it is unfair and counterproductive to bring in emotional arguments and name-calling into the debate.  This answer opened Perry up to a very good response and fair knock by Santorum on the straw man of not educating Illegal aliens, but then Santorum oversteps by claiming Perry is soft on illegal immigration.  Santorum brings up issues such as bi-national health insurance and the border fence as evidence of Perry’s softness, but these attacks are baseless.  The problem however is Perry failed to respond to these issues and it makes it appear like these are legitimate deficits in the governor’s record.  As Kevin Williams explains, the proposal by the governor was very much in line with conservative beliefs and had nothing to do with government intervention in health care.  Furthermore, Perry has a history of strong border enforcement and even Santorum has agreed in the past that there are more efficient ways of controlling some parts of the border than an actual fence. Those are points that should have been made by Governor Perry.

Baier: Which brings us to this, Governor Perry, if you were president, and you go a call at 3 am telling you that Pakistan had lost control of is nuclear weapons, at the hands of the Taliban, what would be your first move?

PERRY: Well obviously, before you ever get to that point you have to build a relationship in that region. That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country. So to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.

For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16′s, we chose not to do that. We did the same with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them.

Today, we don’t have those allies in that region that can assist us if that situation that you talked about were to become a reality.

Reaction:  Obviously this is a horrible hypothetical to answer as a presidential candidate and Perry should have responded that the question relies on a hypothetical that we must ensure does not come true.  His actual answer was all over the place. The central point that we must treat our real allies better is an important one, but the formulation here must clearly be better. Perry could have also scored points by saying that Pakistan must be held accountable for any support for terrorism if our tax dollars will be used to give them aid.  That aid must be conditional on complete cooperation with us in fighting terrorism.

Bachmann attack on HPV Issue

PERRY: Thank you.

I got lobbied on this issue. I got lobbied by a 31-year-old young lady who had stage 4 cervical cancer. I spent a lot of time with her. She came by my office talked to me about in program.

I readily admitted we should have had an opt-in, in this program. But, I don’t know what part of opt-out most parents don’t get. And the fact is, I erred on the side of life and I will always err on the side of life as a governor as the president of the United States.
Reaction:  This response was a good one during the debate, but it later turned out that Perry did not meet the woman until after he signed the order.  He must be more careful about making these claims in the future.  Unlike Obama, the media will not cover up mistakes and mistruths for Perry.  Perry should also emphasize that part of the problem with the debate is the spread of falsehoods about the vaccine, including some recently promoted by Rep. Bachmann.

WALLACE: Governor Perry, I now have a question for you. Texas has the most uninsured residents of any state in the country, 25 percent.

In the last debate, you blamed it on restrictions imposed by the federal government. But we checked about that, sir, in fact the feds treat Texas like they do all the other big states. On its own, on its own, Texas has imposed some of the toughest eligibility rules for Medicaid of any state in the country. In fact, you rank 49th in Medicaid coverage of low income residents.

So the question is, isn’t Texas’ uninsured problem because of decisions made by Texas?

PERRY: Well, I disagree with your analysis there, because we’ve had a request in for the federal government so that we could have a Medicaid waiver for years. And the federal government has stopped us from having that Medicaid waiver. Allowing the state of Texas, or for that matter the other states that we’re making reference to here, that have waivers give them more options to be able to give the options, there’s a menu of options that we could have, just like Jon Huntsman talked about. That is how we go forward with our health care. Each state deciding how they’re going to deliver that health care. Not one size fits all. And I think this whole concept of not allowing the states to come up with the best ideas about how to deliver health care in their state. And the fact is, people continue to move to the state of Texas. Some of the highest rates in the country, because we’ve created a state where opportunity is very much the word of the day there, if you will, for finding work and what have you.  And our health care is part of that. Our education is part of that. And we are proud of what we put together in the state of Texas.

Reaction:  Besides some phrasing concerns, this was the right answer. Perry could have further emphasized how the number of uninsured is severely inflated by Illegal aliens.

Governor Perry, 30 seconds to respond (Romney defense of Romneycare).

PERRY: I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment?

Was it — was before he was before the social programs, from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Roe v. Wade? He was for Race to the Top, he’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and –

and– and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.

Reaction:  This was the perfect opportunity to criticize Romney on his weakest issue by pointing to the similarities between Obamacare and Romneycare, but Perry failed to do that.  There are quite a few troubling statistics about the cost and affect Romneycare has had on Massachusetts that would also be helpful in a response here.  The attack on Romney for switching many of his positions is a valid one, but Perry must articulate it much better.  A good way to do that and emphasize the actual question would be to point out that Romney was not running from his healthcare plan until it was evident that Americans reject Obamacare or any system like it.  At the end of the day, Republicans need a candidate that believes in the policies they advocate because of their principles, no their politics.

Brett Baier: Now, I’m not asking for your jobs plan here. What I’m asking for is, how are you going to turn this country around? We’ll go down the row, 30 seconds each.

PERRY: Americans — Americans want a leader who’s got a proven record of job creation. Number one, we get rid of Obamacare. Secondly, we pull back all of those regulations that are job-killing today, whether it’s Dodd-Frank or whether it’s the EPA.

And then we sit with Congress and we lower those corporate tax rates, we lower those personal tax rates, and then we put our plan to make America energy independent, and that is the way you get America working again.
Reaction:  Perry had a great answer if the question was how to get American’s working again, but Baier specifically asked for something other than a jobs plan.  This was the time to emphasize how strong America is and how Perry will be a leader that will get us back to the point where people believe in this country and our future.  Creating jobs will be very important in this election, but our candidate must also emphasize that they have a different vision of what America is and will be. Perry must emphasize that, unlike Obama, he believes in the exceptional nature of this country.

I still believe Rick Perry is the best candidate on paper to face off against Obama, but that will not matter if he cannot articulate that to others. Rick Perry is free to use any of my advice or ignore it, but I do hope he comes up with better answers in the near future. If not, I and many others will face the reality that he is not the candidate we were hoping for.