Yeah Jim, that will work, insult their candidate, falsely claim a tie to Rove, insist they were stupid to back him, tell them their candidate should quit, and just watch them flock to YOUR choice of candidate.
If Perry leaves, the Perry supporters aren’t moving to Cain. In fact, I’d be surprised if any of the also-ran supporters will move to Cain.
Here’s my argument: Most people want to pick a winner. There are some who are just in love with a candidate, but most are in love with the idea of ANY conservative who can beat Romney and then Obama.
Look at Perry. All he did was ENTER the race, and he was the front-runner. It wasn’t until he failed the “debate test” that a major part of his “support” left him. Those were some of the “any candidate who can win” people, and they migrated over to Cain. But not all of them. Perry kept a good deal of support, as did Bachmann, and Santorum to a lesser degree. If those supporters haven’t jumped to Cain when he’s the front-runner and doing so would crush Romney, they aren’t going to go to him when their candidate is attacked falsely by him.
And look at Gingrich. We “rejected” him a long time ago. Nobody thought he was electable. But while Perry drops, the Perry support is going to Gingrich, not Cain, even though Cain is the front-runner. People are so concerned about Cain that they are moving to Gingrich instead of Cain.
If I were the Cain supporters, I’d be looking for ways to prop Perry up for another month, because if Perry is gone, Gingrich gets his money, his people, his organization, and probably his endorsement. Remember that Gingrich and Perry have a cordial relationship, and Perry got some of Gingrich’s staff when Gingrich was low on money.
Cain’s only chance to win at this point is to keep the other conservatives in the race, so their supporters don’t all jump to Gingrich; eventually he needs them to drop out, but only after GIngrich is out of money and has lost some.
This would mean Cain might risk losing to Romney, but Cain has repeatedly said he doesn’t share our desire to beat Romney — he’d be fine if ROmney won, and would expect Romney might make him VP.
If I thought Cain was qualified to be President, I would have supported him a long time ago. He talks a great conservative game, and while he also says a lot of stupid things, I haven’t yet decided that he really is just saying what we want to hear. But being great at speaking doesn’t help when you are so naive you think that every answer to our economic problems is 9-9-9, that nobody cares if you understand what Palistinians are, or that they shouldn’t get a right-to-return, and that you don’t need to know anything about world leaders or countries.
It doesn’t help when you are as solidly pro-life as they come, and yet need 4 tries over 2 months to even make a basic pro-life statement that doesn’t sound like it was co-authored by planned parenthood.
And it certainly won’t help when his campaign repeatedly pronounces judgement without getting the basic facts, and has to therefore repeatedly explain why it’s not their fault they got things wrong.
If I were going to support a former pizza executive for President, I’d rather see Tom Monoghan. He wasn’t handed a pizza company — he built one from scratch. He didn’t take the company he was given and bury it in the yard to return it without growth 10 years later — he built his creation to the 2nd-largest pizza company in the world.
That is what a real leader is. Cain is a competent manager and an inspirational speaker — as are so many black americans who grew up in the ministry; preaching is an excellent gift, and Cain has that gift, but it’s really nothing like public government leadership.
It’s interesting that, up until now, I’ve still considered Cain (note: I’ve never been a Perry supporter). It took Perry’s implosion for me to realise that even with Perry gone, I was not inclined support Cain, not when there were still viable conservatives who would actually be experienced leaders who could step in on day one to solve our problems.
I still don’t have a candidate. If Cain had Perry’s record, I’m certain I’d be a Cain supporter now. If Perry could ever learn to be passable in a debate, I might have supported Perry. If Perry manages to get back his support, I won’t mind at all being a Perry supporter.
Excellent summary.
That was PERFECT, it cannot be explained much better.
Your analysis is really quite excellent. It is not a complete match for the way I see things, but very good anyway.
I tried to support Perry because he looks so solid on paper (aside from his immigration problems), but for me it has become absolutely clear he can not communicate effectively enough to be President. I certainly don’t dislike him, I think he’s got a good record and I feel confident he’d make mostly the right decisions as President - but half the battle of being President is being able to persuade people that conservative changes are the way forward and I don’t think Perry can do that.
I simply can not take Herman Cain seriously. Period. I don’t think he will be the nominee, and if he were I think he’d lose in a landslide. I will not be supporting him (though I will certainly vote for him in a general election on the off chance he wins the nomination). Also, I do not support a national sales tax and the answer to every problem is not 999 - that got old and tired a long time ago.
So, I am left looking for a conservative candidate to support. For me, the only viable option left seems to be Gingrich. Newt has his problems no doubt, but the one thing he does exceptionally well is intellectually communicate conservatism - he fundamentally understands it, can discuss the very core of its meaning in a debate format or in any give and take conversation. So for all his problems, I think I am left with supporting Newt - and I am actually beginning to think I should have been all along. I am not satisfied with these choices, I wish Paul Ryan had run myself - but the field is what it is and is not going to change. Out of the bunch, Gingrich is both qualified on substance AND communication skills.