by Datechguy | January 13th, 2012
Robert Stacy McCain
Although Perry Remains in my top three choices for president (Santorum, Perry, Gingrich) on the GOP side it is becoming increasingly clear that he has not successfully sold himself to the GOP electorate nor to the American people.
This is not due to his record. His record in Texas is a good one, nor is it due to stupidity. A man doesn’t get where he has without being bright. Nor is it from lack of effort from tireless supporters like my friend Barbara Espinosa who like a true Texan has been an unwavering voice for Rick Perry.
It seems to be due to a rather foolish decision concerning a basic principle of how to get ahead and recover from a stumble.
Everybody stumbles in a campaign, and Perry is no exception, but the question becomes: how does one recover from such a situation?
It is axiomatic that there are two ways to get ahead: Either raise yourself up or tear others down. Despite a successful fundraising apparatus, Rick Perry, for whatever reason has not resonated with GOP primary voters, money and record not withstanding.
So having failed to raise oneself up we are left apparently with plan B:
No two candidates in the GOP field were so diametrically opposite as Cain and Santorum. After months of hearing Cain’s faults recited by the Perrybots — Cain lacked previous political experience and was especially deficient in foreign-policy knowledge — I expected some relief from such sneers when I became a supporter of the experienced Santorum, widely recognized for his knowledge of foreign policy and national security. But I was sadly mistaken.
No sooner had Santorum’s late-December surge begun than the Perrybots suddenly got in touch with the inner libertarians, and started denouncing Santorum as a “Big Government conservative,” the Worst Earmarker in American History.
The fact that these anti-Santorum arguments bore an uncanny resemblance to the content of anti-Santorum arguments propagated in Rick Perry’s own ads? Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
And there was something else, too.
There was an interlude between the time the Cain Train ran off the rails and the time when Santorum’s surge in Iowa became widely apparent. That interlude – roughly from Thanksgiving to Christmas – was filled by the Newt Bubble. And during those weeks, there were many conservative pundits who, although ostensibly devoted to the Anybody But Romney mission, were all the time suggesting that if Newt could not withstand the frontrunner scrutiny, the man who would supplant Gingrich as the “conservative alternative” candidate was . . .
Rick Perry: The Only Man Who Could Beat Romney™
Maybe you didn’t notice this, but I did
Unfortunately while the media outlets gladly accepted the huge purchases and the expensive consultants happily cashed their checks the end result of all of this was a 5th place finish in Iowa, and a 6th place finish in New Hampshire. In polling in South Carolina Perry is not impressing and there is no reason to believe that he will do any better in Florida.
The bottom line is conservatives who want to prevent Former Obama administration official Elizabeth Warren’s victory in November and a disincentive for Tea Party activists to show up to support the ticket in November need to unite behind a conservative other than Mitt Romney.
While one might debate if Newt (4th in Iowa, 5th in NH, better fundraising but high negatives) or Santorum (2nd in Iowa 4th in NH, lower name recognition less money) should go it is patently clear that both of them are a superior choice to Rick Perry whose strong fundraising has not translated to anything else than proving he can out poll Buddy Roemer (who has no money) and Vermin Supreme (who has no sanity).
I’ve heard it suggested that Perry does not want to pull out without competing in at least one southern primary, but I would counter that a 4th place or worse finish in South Carolina will be a far greater embarrassment than his finish in NH.
Stacy McCain suggests that a vote for Rick Perry is a vote for Mitt Romney, I’ll go farther than that. I think Perry’s decision to stay in and his likely spectacular rejection by southern voters will not only be the final nail in the coffin for a Perry 2012 run, but will preclude any chance of a successful Perry 2016 run.
I humbly suggest Governor Perry that you look to your dignity and your electability in the future and leave the race.
Update: Stacy lays down the law:
By all normal political logic, Perry’s humiliating fifth-place showing in Iowa should have been the end of his campaign, but his staff and consultants insisted that he had to keep going, if only to give them a chance to spend the rest of the millions in campaign cash he’d collected. Yet they have refined the avoidance of blame to a high art, so I’m sure when all is said and done, Dave Carney and his (well-compensated) friends will lay all the blame for their failures on some convenient scapegoat.
Update 2: How much humiliation can one candidate take?
The group of social conservative leaders meeting in Texas this weekend has thrown their support behind Rick Santorum.
In a conference call this afternoon, Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins said that on the third ballot Santorum won a solid majority of votes from the movement conservatives gathered at a private ranch near Houston.
Of 114 votes cast, Santorum won 85. Newt Gingrich took the remainder.
In a remarkable slap in his home state, Rick Perry didn’t even make it past the first ballot, Perkins said.
I feel bad for Perry and contempt for those who set him up for humiliation for the sake of an extra paycheck or two.
Whomever Colbert beats in SC should quit the race.