TAMPA, FL -- The morning after a sometimes-rocky appearance in front of a Tea Party debate audience, Gov. Rick Perry said he was "taken aback" by cheers from some crowd members on a hypothetical question of whether a young man who decides not to buy health insurance should be refused care if he develops a life-threatening illness and be left to die. 
 
 "I was a bit taken aback by that myself," Perry told NBC News and the Miami Herald after appearing at a breakfast fundraiser in Tampa. 
 
 "We're the party of life. We ought to be coming up with ways to save lives." 
 
 Perry distinguished from that the issue of "justice," reiterating his strong support and "respect" for the death penalty on a state-by-state basis. "But the Republican party ought to be about life and protecting, particularly, innocent life," he added. 
 
 Perry also responded to the crowd's negative reaction to his support for allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, saying his campaign has "the right message" on opportunities for children who were brought to the United States illegally "by no fault of their own." 
 
 "This issue is about education, it's not about immigration," he said. 
 
 "These kids showed up in our state by no fault of their own, some 2-3 years of age. And they've been in our schools, they've done their work, they've prepared themselves good, they want to be contributing members of society. So it would be I think the wrong message to say somehow or another that you can't go to our colleges, or we've going to punish you because of the sound of your last name." 
 
 "When people really think about it, I think they'll understand what we did in Texas was the right thing for Texas," he said. 
 
 Last night's debate also featured shots at Perry from both Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum on the issue of Gardasil, a vaccine that Perry mandated to be given to 12-year-old girls to prevent HPV - a disease linked to cervical cancer. 
 
 Bachmann said on NBC's TODAY Show this morning that she was approached by a woman after the debate whose daughter had suffered mental retardation as a result of getting the vaccine. 
 
 Perry dismissed that idea as similar to debunked theories linking vaccinations to autism. 
 
 "You heard the same arguments about giving our children protections from some of the childhood diseases, and they were, autism was part of that. Now we've subsequently found out that was generated and not true." 
 
 "I would suggest to you that this issue about Gardasil and making it available was about saving people's lives," he added. ||||| TAMPA, Fla. — This did not feel like your father’s presidential debate. 
 
 A triumph for a movement born just over two years ago, the first-ever tea party presidential debate was a clear departure from the four previous ones this cycle — or before. 
 
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 Inside a dusty warehouse on a fairground, instead of a marbled presidential library, the crowd was rabidly partisan, bursting with boisterous applause that served as a live dial meter for the candidates to measure — and adjust to — in real time. 
 
 Afterward, instead of whisking away in their black SUVs, most of the contenders headed across the street for a mix and mingle afterparty with those who served up the questions. 
 
 The crowd is, after all, expecting to be in charge from here on out. 
 
 “We are going to choose the next Republican nominee for president, not the Republican Party,” said Amy Kremer, chair of the Tea Party Express, which partnered with CNN for the two-hour event to the audience just minutes before the eight GOP contenders took the stage. 
 
 The substance wasn’t all that different as the candidates were pelted with questions from tea party activists around the country and via satellite in addition to CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer: Aside from the Federal Reserve and the Fair Tax, Monday covered typical issues like immigration, health care and job creation. 
 
 But unlike in other debate settings where the crowds refrain from jolting reactions, this gathering was humming with emotion, releasing almost instantaneous bursts of audible approval or dissatisfaction. 
 
 The real message being delivered was a shot across the bow: Any contender who wants a realistic shot at winning back the White House will need the tea party’s fervor to make it happen. 
 
 “I definitely think the energy and enthusiasm in this debate from the people in the audience, there was way more of it,” said Kremer in an interview after. “They should feel it. What we have is the passion, the fire in the belly. That’s organic. It can’t be bought and can’t be created.” 
 
 The process wasn’t always pretty. 
 
 Ron Paul was booed when he tried to explain what he sees as America’s role in the root causes of the Sept. 11 attacks. So was Rick Perry — for his defense of a Texas law that gave in-state college tuition to children of illegal immigrants. 
 
 Jon Huntsman got perhaps the coldest reception. Several times the former Utah governor attempted to charm over an unnatural constituency with humor. But he barely earned a golf clap, and by the conclusion, the look of bewilderment on his face marked a man who looked like he’d seen a ghost. 
 
 The intensity even sparked a darker moment — custom-made for Democrats to use down the road— when audience members shouted “Yeah!” in response to a question from Blitzer about whether a 30-year-old man without health insurance should be left to die.
– Count Rick Perry among those "taken aback" at the reaction of some in the crowd during a debate question about health insurance last night. (A handful shouted "Yeah!" and cheered to a hypothetical question about whether someone who forgoes insurance should be allowed to die. See the video here.) Asked about it today, the Texas governor replied, "I was a bit taken aback by that myself," reports NBC News. "We're the party of life. We ought to be coming up with ways to save lives." He made clear, however, to draw a distinction with the death penalty, which he supports as a matter of "justice," he said. "But the Republican party ought to be about life and protecting, particularly, innocent life," he added.