THE REPUBLICAN [MSNBC] DEBATE—MANIPULATION DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK
Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief
(http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com)
Excerpt from the Sept 9, 2011 issue:
The UK Telegraph had an excellent intro to this topic: “The latest Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Library has helped focus the race on three people. As predicted, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney tore chunks out of each other in their bitter battle for first place. Less predictable was the strong performance by Ron Paul. The other candidates faded into the background. Michele Bachmann was strangely silent and a couple of nobodies might bail [leave the race] after failing to get noticed.”
As I read the transcript of the Republican debates at the Reagan Library, I couldn’t help but notice the initial blatant attempt to showcase the media favorite Rick Perry and the leader-to-beat Mitt Romney. The establishment clearly doesn’t want Romney to be President and are maneuvering hard to promote Perry. It’s not that Romney wouldn’t try to bend over backward to please the establishment; he would. It’s just that as a non-conspirator in the global agenda, and smart cookie, he might just see too much of the dark side of government. They would have to take extreme measures to control him, as they did with Ronald Reagan, and that risks exposure of the control system that has a strangle hold on both parties.
The skewed debate clearly had as it’s intent to showcase Perry and attack Romney. It was obvious the first question was meant to focus on the ability of Perry to create jobs. Newscaster Brian Williams was hoping that Perry would come out ahead on this issue since Texas has fared pretty well during the recession. But Romney correctly pointed out that this was mostly due to other factors like no state income tax and a largesse of federal money–not Perry’s policies.
Romney was attacked for a low job creation rate during his governorship, but he countered with facts that showed he made substantial progress given the bad condition of the state when he took office. Overall, Romney showed himself the better debater.
The next topic showed a clip of Romney praising his Massachusetts version of mandated health insurance. It put Romney on the spot, as intended, and was an obvious move to take him down a notch or two in the eyes of Republican conservatives. That’s not hard to do because this one issue is perhaps the biggest tactical mistake Romney made at the beginning of his campaign. His advisors told him he had to change his media promoted reputation as a flip-flopper, and so rather than say he made a mistake, he decided to defend his personal health insurance mandate in MA and then try to soften that defense by saying that his first act as president would be to sign an Executive Order allowing all the states to opt out. That’s never going to be good enough for people who want a leader who will stand up for the right of individuals to be free from any government mandate to buy something they don’t want.
All in all I think Romney defended himself better than Perry. The tainted questions of the debate failed to take down Romney as a contender, and the stress of the attacks brought out the dark side of Rick Perry’s demeanor. Romney correctly showcased Perry’s damaging statements attacking Social Security—a position no one can take and get elected in today’s political climate.
One got the feeling that the other questions were kind of token questions aimed to show the audience that Williams wasn’t ignoring the others—though he clearly tried to. Ron Paul was prepared for that since he runs into it in every debate. He grab a few key opportunities to expand past the initial question to get in his points. This elicited more debate with Perry and allowed Paul to get more time. That’s why the Telegraph correctly saw Ron Paul as the surprise of the debate.
It showed up in the MSNBC poll. With 80,000 online votes cast Ron Paul came out with 48%. Romney got almost 19% and Perry only 15%. Liberal Republican Jon Huntsman moved up to 7% and Bachmann was near the bottom with Rick Santorum—who already quit the race once. I expect him to do the same again soon.
Paul, quite naturally, tends to get a little excited or strident when pushed for time. But he certainly needed to do something to get a word in when dealing with a rigged debate determined to exclude him. Williams started out by calling out Ron Paul with the pejorative "you’re the only absolutist of the bunch." Paul proudly turned that into a compliment. Good move.
The AP reported that "Paul said that Perry is ‘less conservative than meets the eye.’ Perry countered that Paul left the GOP a turncoat against Reagan’s Republican Party.” But Paul made a great comeback by stating the reason—that Reagan had departed from his message and was increasing taxes and government spending at a high rate. Paul wrote: “I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.” All true and it gained Paul points with the audience.
"It was the most direct confrontation between the pair. In recent weeks, Paul called Perry ‘Al Gore’s Texas cheerleader’ for once working in support of the Democrat [Perry
himself was a Democrat—telling]. The back-and-forth between two Texans, who never have been particularly close [actually, they’d
never met formally before], was an escalation several weeks in the making.
“Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has a strong legion of die-hard supporters and a big bank account, came within 152 votes of winning an important test vote in Iowa on the same day that Perry, who leads in several national and state polls. As both candidates have seen their standing in the GOP field rise, they have sharpened their criticism of each other [Paul produced a commercial detailing Perry’s liberal positions
on immigration, globalism, Al Gore, and forced vaccinations for school girls].
“In countering Perry on Health Care, Paul said ‘He [Perry] wrote a really fancy letter about Hillarycare so we probably ought to ask him about that,’ referencing a 1993 letter Perry wrote in support of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system [that was strongly opposed by the public at the time].”
Perry has never been even close to Ron Paul’s steadfast and consistently conservative positions. "In 2008, Perry, who previously supported Texans Phil Gramm [a liberal Republican] and George W. Bush for president, backed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani [another
corrupt globalist and cross-dresser] over Paul in the GOP nomination fight."
Another favorite of the Powers That Be (PTB) is former Utah governor and Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. Huntsman is a collaborator with the globalists and a person whose positions shift with the political winds. Both Romney and Huntsman are Mormons, but Huntsman, early in the campaign, waffled about his commitment to his religion. Even if you don’t care about religion, you have to wonder about a person who betrays his values when they are not popular. Both are high powered, hard driving businessmen. I dislike both because they are excessively ambitious and try to please the establishment. But of the two, Huntsman is the more dangerous. The PTB wouldn’t be promoting someone who had solid principles, and try to defeat the other if he were on their side. Huntsman is a long shot this time around, but he’s being positioned in reserve in case the media bid to promote Perry fails. He’ll definitely be a candidate to be reckoned with in the future.
Perry also has a dark and hostile side to his personality, which belies his claims to being a born again Christian. During the break he walked over to confront Ron Paul in a fairly offensive manner, grabbing Paul’s wrist and shaking his finger in his face. Perry was clearly upset with Paul having attacked him so openly and was verbally arguing with him in an almost threatening manner. Paul even had to back away from his podium to keep Perry out of his face. Paul is as kindly and nice a person as you’d ever meet, but he didn’t back down. See for yourself: http://www.infowars.com/pictures-suggest-perry-attempted-to-physically-intimidate-ron-paul/
It’s my assessment that Perry is the true wolf in sheep’s clothing in this race. He’s already made many damaging and radical statements, such as suggesting that Texas secede from the union—in a fake appeal to Right wing conservatives. These statements would be sufficient to get himself crucified in the press but the media has strangely refused to make an issue of his many verbal gaffs—an obvious attempt to maintain a favorable image for him.
Whoever wins the nomination, Obama is clearly in trouble. Despite establishment attempts to re-elect him (falsifying his birth certificate and refusing to acknowledge the proofs of it being a forgery; and faking the second death of Obama bin Laden) he continues to decline in the polls. Independent pollster and political analyst Scott Rasmussen told Newsmax that Wednesday night’s GOP debate was "rockier" than expected for leading candidate Rick Perry, and says his stance on the Social Security issue could be the ‘chink in the armor’ of his campaign.
"But Rasmussen asserts that the Texas governor now has all the ‘excitement and charisma’ in the Republican race and could prove difficult to beat, while leading challenger Mitt Romney is in an ‘awkward position.’ [because of Romneycare]."
My view is that Perry is still very vulnerable and that his charisma only exists as long as people don’t get a chance to see his dark side. Ron Paul is still a worry to the establishment, but he does lack the charisma necessary to attract unthinking voters who are influence by that kind of superficiality. As in 2008, Paul’s greatest asset is his ability to polarize the voters, give them clear choices, and build the movement against big government. No one else does it like Ron Paul. Let’s give him all the support we can.
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