Perry Is Target as Republican Candidates Take Aim

Texas Gov.  Rick Perry's status as front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination animated a candidates' debate in Florida Monday, as rivals attacked his rhetoric on Social Security, his record on immigration and job creation and his push to inoculate girls in Texas against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cancer.


In remarkably personal exchanges, Mr. Perry and Mitt Romney, who has ceded the lead in public opinion surveys to the Texas governor, clashed repeatedly. Six other candidates at times piled on Mr. Perry or protested the focus on the front-runners.


Mr. Perry sought to soften his earlier statements on Social Security by assuring that those at or near retirement will be fully covered. "Slam dunk guaranteed, that program is going to be there in place for those" people, he said.


But Mr. Romney immediately went on the offensive, demanding that Mr. Perry explain statements made in a recent book that Social Security was akin to a Ponzi scheme and violated the principle of small government.


"The term 'Ponzi scheme' I think is over the top and unnecessary and frightful to many people,'' Mr. Romney said, calling Social Security an essential program that needs a change in its funding structure.


Mr. Perry in turn said it was Mr. Romney who was "trying to scare seniors." He quoted from Mr. Romney's own recent book. "You said if people did it in the private sector it would be called criminal. That's in your book,'' Mr. Perry said.


Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. interjected, "All I know is we're frightening the American people who just want solutions."


The candidates faced off in a debate in Tampa sponsored by CNN, the Tea Party Express and more than 100 tea-party groups.


Mr. Perry's effort to build his campaign around the record of job growth in Texas came under fire from others on stage.


The rapid rise of Mr. Perry, who joined the race only a month ago, made him a central target for his Republican rivals. He sought to deflect the critiques with humor and sarcasm, but he sought to clarify his position on Social Security, a program whose constitutionality he has questioned. He said that he “slam-dunk guaranteed” that promised benefits would be available to current retirees, but he also suggested that the nation should examine ideas like allowing states to opt out of Social Security and set up their own programs.


He repeatedly tangled with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who pushed him again and again to expound on his positions. When Mr. Perry tried to flick away the questions, Mr. Romney declared: “We’re running for president.”


The debate went a long way in clarifying the contours of the Republican contest, both in terms of the strength of the candidates — for the second time in a row, Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry were the main players — but also when it came to the issues driving the race. It is rare in a presidential primary to have such a vivid difference of opinion on a critical issue, as is the case with Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry on Social Security.


The Republican presidential debate often took on the feel of a rollicking political game show, playing out before a studio audience of 1,000 Tea Party activists here at the Florida State Fairgrounds. The debate was continually interrupted by applause, but it remained an open question whether the cheers or the jeers provided an accurate reflection of how Republican voters elsewhere were judging the evening.


A day after the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the debate dealt almost exclusively on domestic concerns. The criticism that the Republican candidates leveled at one another overshadowed the time spent assailing the policies of President Obama.


Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who has struggled to break into the exchanges between Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney, forcefully stepped into the conversation as she challenged Mr. Perry for a program he advocated in Texas requiring girls entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, which causes a sexually transmitted disease that is linked to cervical cancer.


After Mr. Perry repeated his lament that it was a mistake to have required the vaccination with an executive order rather than through legislation, Mrs. Bachmann said: “To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong.”


To the applause of the audience, she reprised questions about the role Mr. Perry’s former chief of staff, Michael Toomey, might have played in pushing the executive order as a lobbyist for the drug company that makes the vaccine, Merck. She suggested that the company generated thousands of dollars in donations to Mr. Perry.


“The company was Merck and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” said Mr. Perry, who actually received $30,000 in donations, records show. “I raise about $30 million — if you’re saying I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”


Mr. Perry, who was positioned at the center of the stage, did not retreat from the criticism. But he drew jeers for his decision in 2001 to allow the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public universities in Texas. Mrs. Bachmann sharply criticized him and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania suggested an ulterior motive.


“Maybe that was an attempt to attract illegal — I mean Latino — voters,” Mr. Santorum said.


The decision by CNN to co-sponsor the debate with the Tea Party Express resulted in a more roiling debate than the more decorous one that took place last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California. The audience of about 1,000 made no secret of whom it liked and whom it did not, cheering along Mr. Perry and Herman Cain, a former business executive, and being cool to Mr. Romney.


Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney, placed next to each other at center podiums, quickly turned their answers into a nightlong match of one-upmanship. At one point, Mr. Perry leaned over and patted his rival on the back as the moderator asked Mr. Romney if Mr. Perry deserved any credit for job creation in Texas.


“If you’re dealt four aces,” Mr. Romney said, “that doesn’t make you necessarily a great poker player,” he said.


But Mr. Perry was ready with a quip of his own: “Mitt, you were doing pretty good until you got to talking poker.”


Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman of Utah came prepared with a pocketful of quips, but his dry delivery, coupled with a Tea Party audience who never quite warmed to him, often left his one-liners hanging awkwardly amid little or no applause.


When fielding a question on Social Security, Mr. Huntsman tried: “You’ve got Governor Romney, who called it a fraud in his book ‘No Apology.’ I don’t know if that was written by Kurt Cobain or not.” (Not a Nirvana crowd, apparently. There was no applause or laughter on that allusion, to the Nirvana hit “All Apologies.”)


Later, when Mr. Perry said that it was impossible to secure the border, Mr. Huntsman called it an almost “treasonous comment,” alluding to Mr. Perry’s remarks early in the campaign that were critical of the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke. Mr. Huntsman delivered the line with a grin, but the audience offered only a hushed murmur.


Then, trying to land another attack against Mr. Romney, Mr. Huntsman said: “We could spend all night talking about where Mitt’s been on all the issues and that would take forever.”