Perry rising?

Ace of Spades has this to say about Governor Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney:

Perry was in the Center Seat on Bret Bair's Special Report last night. As usual, he sounded prepared and fluent in an interview setting, even with several questioners. He also apologized again -- and castigated himself -- for that "you don't have a heart" line.

It does seem that Perry has a particular problem with debates, not a general problem with speaking.

Yeah, I know, the polls show him out of it. But I think that's partly due to preference falsification, as people don't support him because they guess that most other people don't support him.

All I know is that, despite Newt Gingrich's verbal agility, if he's our nominee, we cannot talk about the central role that the Democratic client-organizations Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae played in the destruction of our economy. We can't point out that it was not a lack of government intervention that caused the meltdown, but rather it was government intervention itself which created, and then overfilled, the bubble, with all sorts of ridiculous mortgages.

We also can't talk too much about Obama's individual mandate, as Gingrich was an early champion of it. (As Mitt Romney claimed in one debate -- "I got it from you.")

And if we nominate Romney, of course we cannot talk about ObamaCare at all.

I think these are central issues. If our nominee has to soft-pedal them due to the fact he's compromised on them as well, we're ceding an awful lot to Obama.

My belief is that while it's possible, albeit unlikely, that Perry will become better in debates, it is not possible for Gingrich to go back in time and refuse to consult with Freddie Mac (consult? okay), and it is not possible for Romney to go back in time and undo RomneyCare.

I gotta admit I'd really like a candidate whom the media cannot brand "dumb." I gotta admit that -- I'll be happy with Gingrich or Romney, if only for that reason.

Let's face it, Obama's not particularly smart and both Gingrich and Romney are. What a wonderful change of pace for the Republican to be demonstrably more intelligent than his Democratic opponent.

But still, as nice as that is (and it is pretty sweet, I admit), I think I'd rather have the issues.

I'd also like to have that tiny little apparently-inconsequential point that Perry's Texas has created half the country's jobs in the past two years.

I sort of think the election will be fought and won on that issue. And not so much on anything else.

Ace also notes that Perry has written an op-ed piece for the Washington Times in which he says Eric Holder should be fired by Obama for Fast and Furious. I agree. I also watched the Fox News program referred to above, and was impressed with Perry. One thing he said was that he would not fund foreign aid to China, because they are forcing 35,000 abortions a day!

The link to Ace: http://ace.mu.nu./