BY ALYSSA CARTEE
ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN
This week on the Sunday political shows, Texas Governor and GOP hopeful Rick Perry made his talk show debut.
When asked about his poor debate performance, Perry told “Fox News Sunday,” he knows it’s a weakness.
“Well when you take a look at the debates, I readily admit I’m not the best debater in the world. With as many debates as we’ve got comin’ up, I may end up being a pretty good debater before it’s all said and done.”
Perry also said he is tired of hearing about class warfare.
“You got the President, you have some people out there that wanna talk about class warfare that the rich are going to have more money or what have you. I’m interested in individuals who are going to be able to invest in this country.” FLASH Wallace: “But I just want to make it clear. You’re saying that yes, the wealthy, the job creators as you call them, they are going to end up getting bigger tax cuts under the Perry plan then the middle class?” Perry: “I’m interested in people investing. Again, I’m not for class warfare.”
Perry hired some new campaign staff this week who have reputations for running tough campaigns. Chris Wallace thought the hires might be for one specific battle.
Wallace: “How hard are you prepared to go after Mitt Romney in this GOP Primary fight?”
Perry: “Well I don’t get confused with just telling the truth, what someone might say that’s negative. If we’re telling the truth about someone, the truth is the truth. Whether it hurts your feelings or not.”
At the end of the show, Wallace pointed out all of the candidates have appeared on his show... except for one.
“With Governor Perry’s appearance, we have now interviewed all the major Republican candidates in our 2012-101 series except Mitt Romney. He has not appeared on this program or any Sunday talk show since March of 2010. We invited Governor Romney again this week but his campaign says he’s still not ready to sit down for an interview.”
Wallace wasn’t the only host to start a smack-down with a candidate this week. “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer reprimanded Herman Cain for his YouTube ad that went viral this week showing his campaign manager Mark Block smoking.
Schieffer: “It's not funny to me. I am a cancer survivor like you.”
Cain: “I am also.”
Schieffer: “I had cancer that was smoking related. I don't think it serves the country well, and this is an showing someone smoking a cigarette. You're the front-runner now. It seems to me as front-runner you would have a responsibility not to take that kind of a tone in this campaign. I would suggest that perhaps as the front-runner, you'd want to raise the level of the campaign.”
Cain: “We will do that, Bob. I do respect your objection to the ad. Probably about 30% of the feedback was very similar to yours. It was not intended to offend anyone. Being a cancer survivor myself, I am sensitive to that sort of thing.”
Senior White House adviser David Plouffe told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Romney’s values are hard to pin down.
“He has no core. And you know, every day almost, it seems to be we find another issue. FLASH So you look at issue after issue after issue and he’s moved all over the place. Let me tell you something after working a few steps down from the President. What you need in that office is conviction. You need to have a true compass and you have got to be willing to make tough calls. You get the sense with Mitt Romney that if he thought it was good to say the sky was green and the grass was blue to win an election, he'd say it.”
