Keller @ Large: Perry And Romney Spar In Debate
BOSTON (CBS) – Eight Republican candidates shared the stage Wednesday night, but it was the two front-runners who wasted no time going after one another.
This was a great chance for Mitt Romney to slow Texas Governor Rick Perry's momentum, and WBZ-TV's Jon Keller believes the next round of polls may show Perry coming back to earth a bit.
Perry: "What Americans are looking for is someone who can get this country working again, and we put the model in place in the state of Texas."
Romney: "We created more jobs in Massachusetts than this president has created in the entire country."
WBZ-TV's Jon Keller Is At Large
Right from the get-go, Perry and Romney went at it over the core campaign issue of jobs.
Perry: "He did a great job of creating jobs in the private sector all around the world. But the fact is when he moved that experience to government; he had one of the lowest job creation rates in the country."
Romney: "Texas has a right to work state, it has a Republican legislature and Supreme Court, Texas has a lot of oil and gas in the ground, those are wonderful things, but Governor Perry doesn't believe he created those things. If he tried to say that it'd be like Al Gore claiming he invented the internet.
Perry: Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did Mitt.
Romney: Well, as a matter of fact, George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did governor
Perry held his own there, but the moment Romney hoped for may have come when the debate turned to Social Security.
Perry: "Young people who are paying into that expecting that program to be sound and for them to receive benefits when they reach retirement age that is just a lie."
Romney: "The governor says states ought to be able to opt out of Social Security. Our nominee has to be someone who is committed not to abolishing Social Security, but is committed to saving Social Security."
