the way you have to if you re someone advocating fundamental change to the program. he could have not backed off the book. he could have said given social security s condition today it is a ponzi scheme. that s what a lot of americans think, but fail to reassure in a way that s going to turn a lot of heads within the party. the romney campaign in the spin room last night, they couldn t have been clearer on the record, up front. they think this is the beginning of the end of rick perry s campaign. he s trying to play to a very small base who disagrees with ronald reagan, who said in 1983 that we have to ensure that social security continues for generations to come. mike barnicle, what was your take on the debate? who won? who lost? at the end of the evening, it occurred to me if you were watching that debate for the first time, in your mind, you were thinking which of these candidates appearing on tv could be president of the united states? you were trying to read into your own comf
questions that weren t asked. i also think tere s a bit of a third rail aspect of this discussion that people are looking for a political upside to join in this debate. they re backing away from it. this sounds a little critical on my part. we talked about e detention policy and there s criticism of the bush detention administration policy. there s ambiguity in the bush detention policy. it s something they would rather not talk about even in government. it s not surprising you have candidates for president not looking to be totally involved in it, certainly not this early in the campaign. do you have in hindsight any regrets about the inruments used on the war in terror, warrantless wire tapping, combatants held without charge. doou regret any of those? couple of thoughts. with the benefit of behind sight, i made decisions that i
they have zero income tax, a right to work state. are republican legislature, a republican supreme court. a lot of oil and gas in the ground. they are wonderful things. governor perry doesn t believe he created those things. if he said that, it s like al gore saying he created the internet. as a matter of fact george bush and his pred assessor agrcreate jobs faster than you did. there was a slew of op-eds and analysis that he shouldn t get credit for. mitt romney is going down that path as well. i m not sure the election is going to turn on who created how many jobs in massachusetts in the 1990s or jobs created in texas. the more important issue and you saw this last night in the debate for republican voters is who is best able to stand-up against barack obama and deliver an economic message.
let s get to my first reading of the morning. who would have bet six months ago that the single most contentious issue that could decide the nomination would be the future of social security? the battle lines have been drawn with nancy reagan looking on. rick perry and mitt romney tossed aside the former president s 11th commandment and made it clear they re willing to fight. the scrappy exchanges started around minute five and it was on jobs. we created more jobs in the last three months in texas than he created in four years in massachusetts. texas has zero income tax. texas has a right to work state, a republican legislature, a republican supreme court. governor perry doesn t believe he created that. michael dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, mitt. as a matter of fact, george bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you
successful, made us much safer. how you wrap it and package it, i m less concerned aboutat. the difficulty with the debate is the authoritiesou want for any president, bush, obama or the next one are relatively the sa including using military force. the war on terror as we understood it over the last ten years means a lot of things to a lot of people. some people believe it means gitmo, military commissions and all that other stuff. what we call it is informed. the difference is, if we use effective counterterrorism and talk about it as a counterterrorism effort and war against al qaeda, people will understand what we are doing. we will kill bin laden and use other tools, diplomacy, lel intelligence that help us fight al qaeda. so, in some ways, there s not that much of a difference except what we call it. is that not, though, talkin