Perry vs Romney

So this was Rick Perry’s big debut on the national stage and, meh, he was only OK. Perhaps that’s being too kind. Sure, there were moments when he looked and sounded like a heavyweight contender but these were generally (though not exclusively) when he could talk about Texas. The Lone Star State is a mighty big place but America is even bigger and Perry looked like a man still coming to terms with the leap from state-level scrutiny to the stuff that comes with prancing on the national stage. 

Still, as Jonathan Bernstein says, we should not read too much into this: there will be many more debates before Iowa and New Hampshire and ample time for Perry to improve. Nevertheless it would be a good idea – for him – to find some plausible answers on such obvious issues as the future of social security or climate change. On the latter his scepticism won’t hurt in the GOP primary but he might want something a little better than “Galileo was outvoted for a while” when it comes to the general election; on the former there’s not much that can be done since he’s now on tape calling the scheme (which, whatever its problems, remains mighty