On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a former GOP foe of presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, poked holes in the Obama campaign’s strategy to make Romney’s past as the head of Bain Capital an election-year issue.
According to the Texas governor, his own campaign is proof that line of attack won’t work.
“Well, I will say this — that attack didn’t work during the primary,” Perry said. “It’s not going to work during the general election, either. As a matter of fact you have had a number of major Democrat operatives and office holders scold the president rather strongly for going after Mitt Romney with that same exact attack. I’ll give the president some advice — it didn’t work back in 2012. And it’s — or the early part of 2012, and it’s not going to work in the last months of this campaign.”
Host Bob Schieffer said he didn’t “understand” what Perry meant with that reply, but Perry shot back by explaining these ploys were nothing more than a distraction from President Barack Obama’s record.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying that is a wrong attack that’s not going to work politically. So, if you want to spend your time trying to deflect off of the miserable economy this country is in — you know, we talk about immigration and we talk about the Hispanic vote. The Hispanic population is three percentage points higher in unemployment. There are two million more Hispanics not working today. This president is going to pitch everything at the wall that he can to deflect off of the sour economy that we have in this country, particularly in the Hispanic population. So yeah, I’d go talk about everything else in the world to try deflect the American people off of the most important issue, and that is how are we going to get Americans working again?”