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Coming off a weekend during which he lit up crowds in South Carolina and Iowa, and stomped on the Ames straw poll by finishing ahead of Mitt Romney without even appearing on the ballot, Rick Perry has given his fellow Republicans a lot to worry about.
He also presents a problem for Obama. He has entered the race as the one Republican candidate who can out-Obama Obama in giving speeches that are visionary and about the future (at a time when Politico is running stories titled "Obama's Vision Problem"). He also has a record on jobs that is a bigger threat to Obama than anything else the other candidates have to throw at the President.
His one challenge will be that, if he gets the nomination, Obama will try to paint him as an untrustworthy creature of the far right.
How can Perry capitalize on the opportunity his strengths afford him without falling into Obama's trap?
One way would be to break from the pack on what Ross Douthat recently called “the problem facing the eventual Republican nominee in 2012”: finding a deficit reduction plan that both conservatives and the broader electorate can embrace. More specifically, Douthat refers to the moment in last Thursday’s debate during which all candidates said they would reject a deficit deal that included 10 dollars in cuts for every dollar of increased revenue. He quotes Kevin Williamson to make the point: “Chalk one up to the crazies…$100 billion in new taxes plus $1 trillion in cuts balances the budget in 2012.”
You can easily get to $100 billion in revenue by closing loopholes that are unfair and skewed toward the affluent without ever raising tax rates. Rather than running away from this issue, a candidate like Perry should embrace it and lead on it.
Douthat is right that Republican candidates will face the deficit as a central, defining issue, so they had better be strong and articulte on it. With the super committee wrangling in the coming months to reach a debt ceiling extension that will only barely get us past next year’s election, the debt and deficit will be persistent themes during the election. They will hover above as the dark cloud threatening to rain on whatever candidates try to say about jobs and the economy. And, as Douthat points out, Americans don’t want extremism on this point. As a result, Obama will be desperate to paint his opponent as a right-wing nut when it comes to spending cuts and tax revenues. Republicans will have to have a clear view on the matter.
Rather than parroting the other candidates, Perry should seize the opportunity to be different on this issue for two reasons:
He is as conservative as they come and can afford the risk of leading on the issue. Perry’s reputation as a low-tax, freedom-loving, anti-Washington executive is well-established. The person candidates fear most on this issue is not any of them or some other elected official, but Grover Norquist, who would regard closing loopholes without offsetting tax cuts as a tax increase. On this point, Perry can be a credible educator, claiming that he would only touch loopholes that serve special interests – which is a very conservative thing to do.
It would help him with the group he needs the most help with: moderates. No one yet knows how well Perry’s Texas swagger will play in the "suburbs of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania." By making clear that he is open to a solution that his Republican opponents all reject (they are on record, after all), he takes a move away from Obama that the President hopes to be able to make next year.
Were he to take such a view of deficit reduction, Perry would join the ranks of a Tom Coburn, his neighbor to the north, by igniting plenty of fire from the right while still maintaining his conservative credentials. My guess is that his advisors would think this a risk to great to take, but it may be the best thing he can do to guide the debate on the deficit rather than respond to it.
His views on climate change and evolution are disturbing
Posted by: Clement | August 15, 2011 at 07:20 AM
Tax increases attack growth. Things are not static, they are dynamic. Just cut more spending to destroy the deficit.
& the stimulus has failed http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html
Posted by: Dr Love / Evol Rd | August 15, 2011 at 08:32 AM