Rick Perry has been fighting on his heels ever since Mitt Romney launched his offensive over Perry’s criticism of Social Security. Based on his latest moves, it looks like his big plan to push back rests on portraying Romney as a Democrat.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Perry used Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan to tie him to the White House. It’s a familiar attack on Romney, but Perry’s language was unusually tough. “We don’t need to nominate Obama-Lite,” he said. “We don’t need to nominate someone who is going to blur the lines between President Obama and our nominee.”
A Perry spokesman, Ray Sullivan, employed similar rhetoric on Wednesday in his response to a Romney press release on Perry’s past support for transferring Social Security to individual states.
“Now Mr. Romney is again sounding like a Democrat, distorting the truth and trying to scare senior citizens,” Sullivan said. “As he has so many times in the past, Mr. Romney seems to forget he’s a Republican.”
On Thursday, Perry’s campaign put out a press release on Romney’s education position accusing the candidate of flip flopping on his support for a national curriculum. But the message also pointedly included a recent Romney quote praising Obama’s Race To The Top program while noting Perry’s blanket opposition.
This isn’t surprising, since the risk in Romney’s Social Security message was always that it forces him to the left of Perry in a contest decided by a very conservative GOP. But since nothing Perry has said so far has been able to throw Romney off his game plan on Social Security, it’s worth watching closely whether he can gain any traction in Thursday’s debate with the newly sharpened “Romney = Obama” meme.
