IBD Editorial: Romney's Doomed '3rd Rail' Attack on Perry

Is it possible since Romney has Bush 41 and Rove on his side, that he and his supporters think all of the Bush people are going to support Romney?  How else can you explain the Romney people giving Marc Thiessen, a former Bush 43 speech writer, their plan of action?  If so, that was stupid.

Conservative are more galvanized then I have seen them since 1980 in wanting to turn the Country around and want someone who understands what they are going through on a daily basis with this horrible economy.  In 1980 it was high interest rates with inflation.  Now it is lack of jobs, raises, and inflation with groceries and gasoline even if the powers at be in Government won't admit it as they took them out of the inflation criteria.  Go buy groceries and see prices going up almost every week and then tell us there is no inflation.

This is what happens when someone very wealthy runs for office -- they are out of touch with most Americans who work for a living to buy a home, a car, pay utility bills, buy groceries and gas for the car while hoping to have enough left over for cell phones and cable TV.  Vacations were pretty much out of the picture for a lot of people this year with the high cost of gas since taking a family on a trip by air is expensive not to mention the cost hotels and meals.

Romney is getting ready to tear down a 3,000 sq foot home on the beach in La Jolla, CA to build a $12M mansion.  I don't care if he builds a $20M mansion, but trying to tell most of us he understands as he is unemployed himself is a total insult.  With those comments, it became personal for me after what I have seen happen in the last few years.  Want no part of a candidate who builds a $12M mansion and compares himself to someone who is really unemployed.

Is Romney so clueless that he doesn't understand young people are upset that Social Security they have paid into over the years is most likely either not going to be there, or they will receive a small pension if something is not done.  Most young people understand Social Security needs action not just bandaids and words to ensure solvency.  Romney is against raising the cutoff for how long people have to pay into social security which is now $106,000.  Why?  He calls it a tax increase -- most of us call it fair.  If someone makes $105,000 and has to pay social security on his whole income, why doesn't someone making $250,000 a year have to pay social security on his whole income?  

Any way you slice it, Social Security is a ponzi scheme for young workers whether Romney wants to admit the truth or not.  Commentary Magazine has this to say:

Whatever the case, on substance, Perry is quite right. For younger people, Social Security is almost the definition of a Ponzi scheme. It takes money from the current generation in order to pay out money to support (among others) current retirees. Younger workers are led to believe they are putting money away for their retirement when in fact, they’re giving money away to others. There is no “trust fund” and no “lock box” – and because of demographics the younger generation cannot count on anything like the support past generations have received.

Romney attacks on Perry on the 3rd rail are going to backfire like the attacks on the letter that he sent to Hillary Clinton when he was the Texas Ag Commissioner:

In a letter to Clinton, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, Perry wrote: “I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation’s health care system are most commendable.” 

“I would like to request that the task force give particular consideration to the needs of the nation’s farmers, ranchers, and agriculture workers, and other members of rural communities,” Perry continued, noting his administration’s focus on economic development for rural Texans. 

“Rural populations have a high proportion of uninsured people, rising health care costs, and often experience lack of services.”… 

Asked by TheDC about the 1993 letter, Perry’s presidential campaign defended it, saying the full scope of Clinton’s healthcare plan was not yet known when Perry signed it. 

“You need to read the letter,” top Perry political strategist Dave Carney told The Daily Caller. 

“He praised her efforts in trying to tackle the issue and urged her not to overlook rural Americans. The letter was at the onset of her efforts before she proposed anything. No one could have imagined the horrible monstrosity she cooked up, in fact not to be outdone until ObamaCare years later.”

Rove has lost it after all those years inside the beltway if he thinks that Romney is going to pick up steam and votes by wanting Social Security to remain the status quo or getting someone to release this letter to Hillary that shows Perry was looking out for the farmers and ranchers.

In fact, with all of Romney's flip flops in recent months he is reminding us of another Massachusetts candidate, John Kerry, who was legendary when it came to flip flopping on the issues.  Romney is rapidly closing in on him.  Not only is Romney sounding like the flip flopper John Kerry but when Romney launched his campaign on April 11, 2011, he stole the slogan of his campaign from Kerry:

Mitt Romney's launched his exploratory committee today with a dynamic new slogan: "Believe in America." 

If that slogan sounds a little familiar, that's because it was the title of John Kerry's cross-country tour in August of 2004, as CNN reported a two-week, 3,500-mile, coast-to-coast trip, dubbed the 'Believe in America' tour, that will take them to 21 states and 40 cities."

Romney and his people cannot even come up with an original slogan using the one for Kerry instead.  Tell me again why he is running for President.

Romney is also sounding more like Bill Clinton by the day with putting his finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing on Global Warming and now Social Security and then doing a flip flop.  Add his 'me too' mentality like now saying he may go into Iowa after dissing their straw poll in order to take on Perry in Iowa is laughable.  He wanted no part of Iowa but now may challenge Perry in Iowa?  Good Luck with that in a farm state like Iowa.  What is he going to do offer Iowans more of an ethanol subsidy and make the rest of the country mad?

The Romney campaign has the look of 2008 when he was put on his heels by McCain and never recovered.  He started grasping at straws then and is now doing the same thing.  He never should have run in 2012 when he couldn't beat McCain in 2008.  Now more people I know are even more galvanized against Romney for saying he was going to support McCain and help him win when he dropped out but he did virtually nothing in the campaign.  It is payback time!

Editorial: Romney's Doomed '3rd Rail' Attack On Perry 

Posted 06:16 PM ET 

Election '12: Mitt Romney reportedly intends to use the "third rail of politics" — touch Social Security and you die — to kill Rick Perry. But the winning strategy next year may be something novel for politicians: the truth. 

For unexplained reasons, Mitt Romney's people in New Hampshire told former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen about their grand strategy to defeat Texas Gov. Rick Perry — and the plan couldn't be more out of sync with the anger currently raging at the Republican grassroots. 

"Romney strategists are quick to note that in his book, 'Fed Up!,' Perry writes that 'By any measure, Social Security is a failure' and calls the program 'something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now' that was created 'at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government,'" Thiessen wrote in the Washington Post on Monday. 

The Romneyites promise their man "will use Perry's book to scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina." And, he says, they'll charge that Perry is against the very idea of Social Security and Medicare. 

There is, dare we say, a RINO-sized problem with Romney taking this approach. The former Massachusetts governor is already at a disadvantage as the least conservative, establishment-favored major candidate in what for rank-and-file Republican voters are very anti-establishment times. 

On top of explaining away his "Obomney Care" health reform, plus flip-flops on carbon emission restrictions, the minimum wage, capital gains taxes, abortion and other issues, does Romney really want to be guardian of the big-government status quo on entitlements too? 

Perry rightly has charged that "Deceptive accounting has hoodwinked the American public into thinking that Social Security is a retirement system and financially sound, when clearly it is not." 

Perry compares it to an "illegal Ponzi scheme."Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast 

He obviously knew such stark language would give ammo to opponents in a presidential run. 

"But by remaining quiet," Perry wrote in his book, "politicians are really saying they think the American people won't understand it if we share the grim details of our financial future ... Is that how we should respect our fellow citizens? By underestimating their intelligence, their desire to retire with greater stability, or their commitment to the next generation?" 

The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare now exceed $100 trillion. Perry might just think laying out the frightful facts about entitlements to the American people is the way to the White House. 

Moreover, targeting Perry on Social Security would be yet another Romney flip-flop: In early 2008 he told Glenn Beck he supported "giving people more of their income going in, or their Social Security withdrawal going into, private accounts." 

Can Rick Perry use his high voltage rhetoric to switch that electrified "third rail of politics" to another track? 

Instead of reform-minded politicians being the ones in danger, will those who support spending as usual have to beware the voters?