According to Byron York, Michele Bachmann is planning on attacking Rick Perry on Social Security at tonight’s CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Florida. Bachmann’s campaign has fizzled in recent weeks, and her placid approach at last week’s debate seemed to seal her fate as an also-ran, so it would be a surprise if the feisty Minnesota congresswoman didn’t come out fighting. But if she thinks she will gain ground against Perry among the Tea Party constituency he has stolen out from under her by playing the liberal Democrat, she’s lost touch with reality.
As Chris Moody writes, in an interview last year, Bachmann called Social Security a “tremendous fraud” and said anyone who ran anything like it would be “thrown in jail.” She also said young workers should be weaned off it. Any attack on Perry for saying essentially the same thing ought to earn the Tea Party heroine a gold medal for hypocrisy. Social Security may be Perry’s Achilles’ heal, but it’s hard to see how a candidate such as Bachmann, who has spent her entire career calling for entitlement reform, is any position to take advantage of that weakness.
The same is true for Mitt Romney, who criticized Social Security in his 2010 book No Apology.
Perry may be vulnerable to attacks on this issue from Democrats next fall in a general election, but it’s hard to imagine assuming the role of defender of Social Security in front of a Tea Party audience would do much good for any Republican, let alone a conservative like Bachmann.
Mitt Romney’s strategy to win the nomination is to pose as the most electable Republican who can win the votes of independents and Republicans. Yet the conceit of Bachmann’s candidacy has always been that she is an indefatigable fighter against liberalism and the institutions of big government. Her rise in politics and in the presidential polls until Perry’s entry was predicated on her own use of incendiary rhetoric. So how can she possibly profit from bashing Perry for the same tactics?
The obvious answer is, she can’t. Bachmann needs to show some life at the debate in order to revive her flagging hopes. But if she thinks she can survive by defending entitlements against even a vague prospect of reform, all she will demonstrate is how political ambition can distort the positions of even the most principled of hard-liners. The results may be some fireworks on CNN tonight, but Bachmann is not likely to improve her standing in the polls. As much as her supporters believe this debate will give her an opportunity to get back in the race, adopting this tactic may be the signal it is time to turn out the lights on her presidential bid.
