I’ve developed a habit — it’s probably a bad habit — of assigning letter grades to the Republican candidates based on my initial reaction to their performance in debates. After Wednesday night’s debate in Simi Valley, I gave Rick Perry a B-minus, meaning an average performance. Meanwhile, I gave Mitt Romney, his primary rival for the Republican nomination, a higher grade of A-minus.
The grades are based on neither style nor substance per se, but instead mostly on strategy: how much each candidate did to improve his chances of winning the nomination.
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Some of Mr. Perry’s odder moments — like his invocation of Galileo Galilei in response to a question about climate change — are liable to make for a funny segment on The Daily Show and then be forgotten about. What was more noteworthy was Mr. Perry’s response to a question about Social Security, where he doubled-down on rhetoric from his book and characterized the program as a “Ponzi scheme.”
This particular remark is not likely to sit exceptionally well even with Republicans, conservative though they may be. A CNN poll published last month found 57 percent of Republicans opposed to major changes in Social Security and Medicare.
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Regression analysis of the Washington Post poll suggests that Republicans are weighing these two factors — electability and issue positioning — about equally. If Mr. Romney, rather than Mr. Perry, led on the electability question, that could be enough to push him past Mr. Perry even if Mr. Perry is a little closer to Republican voters on the issues.
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Unless he develops a stronger defense of his positions on Social Security, he will make Mr. Romney’s job much easier.
I think she was going for some sort of sound byte response, but it made no sense.
