“he completely blew it through amateurish, not ready for prime time behavior.”
****
I’ll vote for Cruz over Gov. Goodhair any day of the week.
That being said, the 2012 flop by Perry was primarily because of the heavy pain meds he was taking for back surgery.
Also consider that Bush 41’s behavior in the 1992 campaign was due to being overmedicated for Graves Disease.
I was once told by a senior GOP operative that the day after Pat Buchannan won the NH primary Bush was supposed to come out to apologize for raising taxes, do a mea culpa and ask for forgiveness from Conservatives. Even had the speech ready to go. But 41 woke up cranky due to meds and cancelled the whole thing. Which was probably his best chance to prevent Clinton from becoming President.
With so much on the line, being overmedicated is to me a really poor excuse for being a crappy Presidentisl candidate.