Romney's Doomed '3rd Rail' Attack On Perry

Election '12: Mitt Romney reportedly intends to use the "third rail of politics" — touch Social Security and you die — to kill Rick Perry. But the winning strategy next year may be something novel for politicians: the truth.

For unexplained reasons, Mitt Romney's people in New Hampshire told former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen about their grand strategy to defeat Texas Gov. Rick Perry — and the plan couldn't be more out of sync with the anger currently raging at the Republican grassroots.

"Romney strategists are quick to note that in his book, 'Fed Up!,' Perry writes that 'By any measure, Social Security is a failure' and calls the program 'something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now' that was created 'at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government,'" Thiessen wrote in the Washington Post on Monday.

The Romneyites promise their man "will use Perry's book to scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina." And, he says, they'll charge that Perry is against the very idea of Social Security and Medicare.

There is, dare we say, a RINO-sized problem with Romney taking this approach. The former Massachusetts governor is already at a disadvantage as the least conservative, establishment-favored major candidate in what for rank-and-file Republican voters are very anti-establishment times.

On top of explaining away his "Obomney Care" health reform, plus flip-flops on carbon emission restrictions, the minimum wage, capital gains taxes, abortion and other issues, does Romney really want to be guardian of the big-government status quo on entitlements too?

Perry rightly has charged that "Deceptive accounting has hoodwinked the American public into thinking that Social Security is a retirement system and financially sound, when clearly it is not."

Perry compares it to an "illegal Ponzi scheme."

He obviously knew such stark language would give ammo to opponents in a presidential run.

"But by remaining quiet," Perry wrote in his book, "politicians are really saying they think the American people won't understand it if we share the grim details of our financial future ... Is that how we should respect our fellow citizens? By underestimating their intelligence, their desire to retire with greater stability, or their commitment to the next generation?"

The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare now exceed $100 trillion. Perry might just think laying out the frightful facts about entitlements to the American people is the way to the White House.

Moreover, targeting Perry on Social Security would be yet another Romney flip-flop: In early 2008 he told Glenn Beck he supported "giving people more of their income going in, or their Social Security withdrawal going into, private accounts."

Can Rick Perry use his high voltage rhetoric to switch that electrified "third rail of politics" to another track?

Instead of reform-minded politicians being the ones in danger, will those who support spending as usual have to beware the voters?