Yes what was exchanged should get out there.  But this a tad hyperventilating on the “Conspiratorialists Love Ron Paul” corner.

Ron Paul issued an ad against Rick Perry, focusing on the horrors of his past — back when Rick Perry was a Democrat, he was head of the Texas campaign for Al Gore’s Presidential bid of 1988.  I suppose Rick Perry’s response of tit-for-tat might be effective, if Ron Paul were somehow legitimately a possible nominee for the Republican nomination.  He found the letter Ron Paul wrote walking out of the Republican Party — and into the Libertarian Party candidate for President.

I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.

Ron Paul’s one problem was, in attacking Perry, wrapping himself in the banner of Ronald Reagan.  Which doesn’t quite make sense, even absent this letter Paul has consistently charged Reagan as a failure to his cause of limited government — had the heart in the right place at times, but came up empty, etc.

But it did bring about the interesting side-show at the Republican debate… sideshow, I say, because mostly the media coverage was out to focus on Romeny versus Perry (more than 90 percent chance the Republican nominee will be one or the other.)

The attacks kept up even during the commercial breaks — and not just on stage. Mr. Paul had paid to run an ad during the MSNBC broadcast attacking Mr. Perry, pointing to his support for Al Gore’s presidential bid in the 1980s, including twice calling the governor a “cheerleader.”
“Al Gore found a cheerleader in Texas named Rick Perry,” the ad announcer intones.

Perry tries to nit and pick what his 1988 campaigning meant.  He comes up short, somewhat.  The one thing he tags to was disowned by Gore’s political re-positioning.

Perry tried to play up Gore’s more conservative side when asked last week about the endorsement in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
“Al Gore appeared to be the most conservative — a strong Strategic Defense Initiative guy — and frankly, we thought that he would be the most conservative Democrat,” Perry said. “You know, we were wrong.”
In fact, Perry has repeatedly pointed to Gore’s support for the Strategic Defense Initiative, which is also known as Star Wars. But as ABC’s Michael Falcone points out, before his presidential campaign, Gore hadactually disowned his support of the program.

Gore deserves an odd look-see itself:

As this example shows, mining Gore’s record for more conservative positions is relatively difficult because Gore wasn’t terribly conservative back then. Sure, Gore was more moderate than he is today, but he was still someone with a foot in both the more elite East Coast Democratic establishment as well as in more rural Southern Democratic circles.
The Almanac of American Politics — a.k.a. the Fix’s Bible — in 1990 described Gore as a “generally liberal” senator who was “closer to traditional Demcoratic big government views than other Democrats, notably Michael Dukakis” while more hawkish than his party on foreign policy issues.

Har de har har.  Actually this presents a problem of political definitions — see John Edwards in the way a Southern post civil rights era Democratic politician someone was somehow simultaneously “right” and “left” of the national political party.

The other sideshow battle — Jon Huntsman versus everyone, and take it away with regard to Rick Perry and…

Gallileo.

Perry’s a Rove Scientist on Climate Change, persecuted by the Inquisition, and …

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