Perry says he will compete nationwide

The State ^ | January 6, 2012 | ADAM BEAM

[arrogantsob]

For me it is too late, I can’t see Perry rebounding. I hate to say it. It is probably time to throw his support to Newt or Santorum and move on.

[trumandogz]

[Revolting cat!]

Oh goodie, a new double facepalm pitcher in our collection!

[dirtboy]

CW, you are a great example for someone who supports a candidate with passion without resorting to bashing the other candidates.

Yeah, right.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[VicVega]

Terribly true.

[dirtboy]

If you would have told me three weeks ago that Rick Santorum would come within eight votes of winning Iowa, I would have asked what you were freebasing.

I don't think you can count out Santorum, Perry or Newt. We have seen how tremendous changes in polling over the course of days. And if the Romney slime machine succeeds in pulling down Santorum, then we will be in uncharted territory in that the anti-Romney would have to come from someone who rose, fall and has to rise again.

But the Redstate article makes it clear to me that the Perry campaign needs a major overhaul. And Erick Erickson is a Perry supporter. That wasn't a hit piece, it was a plea to the campaign to get their act together before it is too late.

[dirtboy]

And I will also say this - after South Carolina, whichever of the three - Perry, Newt and Santorum - polls the lowest - that candidate needs to drop out.

And if the leader is well ahead of the second place candidate, that guy needs to look at dropping out as well. I don't think conservatives can withstand going into Florida divided.

[PAConservative1]

Not surprising. Perfectly explains why he had a sudden “change of heart”.

Romney stalking horse to the very end.

[Theodore R.]

Rick Perry could think that he will be Mittens’ V.P. I guess it could happen, but I am for the other Rick — Santorum.

[TwoSwords]

Why don’t you do yourself in? You’d be happier.

[Interesting Times]

Wow, you really do forget quickly. THERE HAS ONLY BEEN ONE PRIMARY, OH GREAT CARNAC THE NOT-MAGNIFICENT! So don’t start reading your crystal ball just yet...you aren’t very good at it anyway.

Let's test that theory.

My crystal ball says that Rick Perry will exit the presidential race before March 1st. What does yours say?

[varina davis]

Love it! Perry plows through primaries! Rick Perry 2012

[John Valentine]

Did he cut a deal with Romney to bleed off votes from Sanorum and/or Gingrich?

Why do people keep repeating this nonsense?

The truth is that Perry is in an unspoken deal with Santorum and Gingrich to bleed votes off Romeny.

[trumandogz]

Thus far he is spending $500.00 per vote.

Not sure how long he can keep spending at that pace.

[shield]

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[John Valentine]

Rick Perry could think that he will be Mittens’ V.P.

Why post this kind of nonsense? This is a deal that makes no sense for either guy, and it asks us to assume that Rick Perry would rather spend four years as Mitt Romney's girl than as the Governor of our most successful state.

Total nonsense.

[varina davis]

Gotta remind y’all “they” said Richard Nixon would never return, nor Harry S. Truman, Nor Ronald Reagan and many had serious doubt about G.W. Bush.

Can’t wait till we get the last laugh at a newspaper headline that reads “Romney wins” as Rick Perry prepares to move to D.C. Truman would love it.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

It’s way too early to be concerned about that. We still have 56 states to go.

[af_vet_rr]

If Allbaugh stays, the Perry campaign needs to rapidly supplement him with a proactive political director who can call the shots moving forward and rely on Joe to make sure the crises that will crop up get responded to while the political director keeps moving the campaign forward.

The Perry campaign missed the Virginia ballot.

It underperformed polling in Iowa. A good campaign can come in higher than polling based on ground game. A mediocre campaign stays even with polling. A bad campaign’s ground game underperforms polling and Perry’s campaign was a bad campaign.

There needs to be a real and visible shake up if anyone in South Carolina is going to be expected to take him seriously. With or without Joe Allbaugh it is possible, but only if it is really visible with some more concretely defined roles between the proactive and the reactive sides of the campaign.

There are two weeks and the campaign needs itself fixed before the news cycle turns over Monday morning, which means there needs to be a plan in place today.

Perry needed a political director to keep him from that going back to Texas to "reassess" things nonsense, giving the appearance he was suspending his campaign. That made him look weak. If Allbaugh was truly running the show, I do not believe that he would have allowed Perry to make that speech, and it makes me wonder about what else was going on, since at one point Perry's spokesman didn't even know what was going on. Perry should have announced they were moving on to South Carolina, left the stage, and headed straight for a private jet to take him to SC.

Back in November and December, some Perry supporters told me that Perry's internal polling had him doing much better than what the external polling and final results in Iowa showed. I have no reason to doubt them or to think that they were given misinformation by their contacts inside the Perry campaign. I've been a part of campaigns where misinformation was sent out through such channels, but Perry's campaign was not really in that bad of a shape. He has plenty of money and plenty of volunteers. Plus, nobody was stealing Perry supporters - Perry was very consistent in November and December in Iowa, between 8% - 14% which isn't much of a variation. Santorum's surge came from Cain, maybe Gingrich, and probably undecideds, not Perry.

It makes me wonder if his internal polling was way off. If that's the case, then he maybe needs to move Tony Fabrizio out of the polling/strategy group, and in fact that maybe happening. Fabrizio is now one of the leads on Perry's Florida campaign, and Fabrizio did a good job of helping Rick Scott in his run for Governor, plus Fabrizio knows the area - he's got a condo in South Beach.

If you'll recall, Fabrizio was outed as being gay back in December and he clashed with some of the other Perry staffers over the "Strong" ad that Perry ran in Iowa. I have to wonder if being outed as gay and disagreeing with other Perry staffers distracted Fabrizio and caused the problems with Perry's internal polling numbers.

I have a lot more faith in Joe Allbaugh than perhaps you do, but something is wrong with his campaign. To Perry's credit, even after Fabrizio was outed, he kept him on, but if Fabrizio provided bad internal polling numbers, he needs to be kept out of the polling group. Maybe that's what is happening, since he's off in Florida on Perry's Florida campaign.