Obama campaign tracks GOP debate

Mindful that the president is often a punching bag in the Republican contests, the Obama campaign is keeping score of the CNN/Tea Party debate and trying to hold would-be rivals accountable on key issues.

And by their playbook, the GOP candidates lose points no matter whether they stick to their guns or change positions.

“At the halfway point, we’ve got one backtrack and two double-downs,” the @BarackObama Twitter account reported to its more than 10 million followers.

Rick Perry was branded with a “double down,” for instance, for saying Social Security had been called a “Ponzi scheme long before me.”

Mitt Romney, long the main target of team Obama, was given a “backtrack” for his counterpunch at Perry on the same program. When he said it was “frightening” to some for Perry to suggest Social Security not be a federal program, the Obama campaign saw that as a reversal of his view that “corporations are people,” as he said in response to tough questioning from a liberal attendee at the Iowa State Fair.

The White House has said Obama himself isn’t watching much of the GOP race. But Vice President Joe Biden told CNN’s John King earlier Monday that he saw the second half of the debate in California last week.