Which one of these guys is outside the GOP mainstream? (Photos: Reuters, WH)
Remember when Mitt Romney and the GOP establishment
thought that Rick Perry had sunk his own campaign by making some rude comments about Ben Bernanke? And more importantly, do you remember how
wrong their analysis turned out to be?
Well, they're at it again:
Romney adviser: Perry 'has lost'
Mitt Romney's campaign leapt just now on Rick Perry's restatement of his view that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and that promising to maintain it in its current form is a "monstrous lie."
"PERRY DOES NOT BELIEVE SOCIAL SECURITY SHOULD EXIST," read the headline of Romney's press release.
Romney adviser Stuart Stevens emails:
He has lost. No federal candidate has ever won on the Perry program to kill Social Security. Never has. never will.
Last I checked, the GOP nomination isn't a federal office. And while Perry's position might not be popular with the electorate at large, it's absolutely consistent with the GOP mainstream.
Perry says that Social Security is unworkable in its present form and that it needs to be replaced. That's exactly the same position that George W. Bush took in 2005 when he tried to privatize Social Security and it's exactly the same position that Paul Ryan and the House Republicans took with respect to Medicare when they proposed privatizing it earlier this year.
Mitt Romney has a different position. (For now, at least. He could change it tomorrow. This is Mitt Romney, after all.) He says Social Security works now and will continue to work in the future. I think that's the right position, but that's why I'm a Democrat. Rick Perry disagrees, and that's why he's a Republican.