Gov. Rick Perry stumbled last night, but on education, he zinged Mitt Romney: “There is one person on this stage that is for Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ and that is Governor Romney,” he said. “He said so just this last week. And I think that is an important difference between the rest of the people on this stage and one person that wants to run for the presidency — being in favor of Obama’s ‘Race to the Top.’ That is not conservative.”

Romney denied the charge, telling Perry “nice try.” He added: “I’m not sure exactly what he’s saying. I don’t support any particular program that he’s describing. I think that the president — I think that the secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is doing a good thing by saying, you know what, we should insist that teachers get evaluated and that schools have the opportunity to see which teachers are succeeding and which ones are failing — and that teachers that are not successful are removed from the classroom. Those ideas by Secretary Duncan, that is a lot better than what the president did, which is cutting off school choice in the Washington, D.C., schools. So let’s give us a full chance to talk about it.”

But Perry had a point. The former Bay State governor has repeatedly praised Duncan, who is spearheading that program. On the trail this week, NBC reports, Romney said that Duncan has “done some good things,” including “this program called ‘Race to the Top,’ which encourages schools to have more choice, more testing of kids, more evaluation of teachers.”

Romney, in his town-hall meeting, added: “I hope that’s not heresy in this room.” On Thursday night, however, he seemed to contradict himself. For Perry, who often struggled to score points, it was a highlight.