Gov. Rick Perry stood his ground, Monday, while fellow GOP candidates took numerous jabs at the front-runner.
Attacked from all sides by fellow Republicans, Texas Gov. Rick Perry softened his rhetoric if not his position on Social Security in a snarky presidential campaign debate Monday night. He fended off assaults on his record creating jobs and requiring the vaccination of schoolgirls against a cancer-causing sexually transmitted virus.
Skip to next paragraphAcross a crackling two-hour debate, the front-runner in opinion polls gave little ground and frequently jabbed back, particularly at his chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
But the criticism of Perry kept coming ? from Romney on Social Security, from Texas Rep. Ron Paul saying the governor had raised taxes, from Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Sen. Rick Santorum assailing his executive order to require Texas schoolgirls to get a STD vaccine.
It marked the first time in the summer debates that internal Republican differences dominated rather than a common eagerness to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama.
Especially on Social Security.
"A program that's been there 70 or 80 years, obviously we're not going to take that away," Perry said in thedebate's opening moments as Romney pressed him on his earlier statements questioning the constitutionality of Social Security and calling it a Ponzi scheme.
The Texas governor counter-attacked quickly, accusing Romney of "trying to scare seniors" with his own comments on a program that tens of millions of Americans ? including millions in the debate state of Florida alone ? rely on for part or all of their retirement income.
The eight rivals shared a debate stage for the second time in less than a week, a pace that marked a quickening in the campaign to choose a challenger to President Barack Obama in 2012. The encounter was sponsored by tea party groups ? the conservative voters who propelled the GOP to victory in the 2010 congressional elections, and by CNN.
There was no doubt which side the debate audience was on, though. Santorum drew loud applause when he said the current economy "would have to make a dramatic improvement just to be a disaster."
The debate unfolded in the city where Republicans will gather next summer to bestow the party nomination on a challenger to Obama.
Bachmann said she had "brought the voice of the tea party to the United States Congress as a founder of the tea party caucus."
Perry said he was glad to be at the debate with the Tea Party Express.
But it soon became clear that the presidential hopefuls were not only eager to court support from the most conservative voters but were anxious not to offend seniors and others who depend on Social Security and Medicare.
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