Listen carefully to GOP field
Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks to media after looking at wildfire damage in Austin, Texas (Sept. 6, 2011) Credit: AP
It's time to turn a sharp eye to the Republicans vying to become president as they square off in tonight's debate. "This time it matters" is a moldy campaign bromide. But this time it happens to be true.
The nation has arrived at a pivotal point. The challenges we face are daunting. How to create jobs. Whom to tax and how much. How to contain the cost of health care, retool Medicare and Medicaid and plot the future of Social Security. And underlying them all is the core issue of how to reclaim the American dream.
President Barack Obama is a known quantity. The Republican candidates are not. This is the moment to start filling in the blanks.
The field has firmed up with Texas Gov. Rick Perry as the front-runner, a spot he snatched from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But Perry is little known outside Texas and this will be his first presidential debate. That makes it a defining moment for his candidacy. And it makes him a target.
His rivals should put his claims of job creation in Texas to the test. And the public needs to hear his out-of-the-mainstream views on issues such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal income tax, which he disparaged in a 2010 book as un-American and maybe even unconstitutional.
What's important are not the soundbite gaffes and the gotchas that any of the eight candidates may make. What matters is their visions of the kind of nation we should be.
