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I don't have your level of campaign experience. But I gotta wonder how a campaign as well-funded as Perry's failed to get a solid safety margin in Virginia over the 10,000 signature requirement. That is basic stuff - you get a lot more signatures than the minimum, just to be safe. I've keyed in names and addresses from nominating petitions and a good number are indecipherable. I've also matched the names against GOP voter rolls and some don't match. You have to get a strong safety margin.

That is basic nuts and bolts campaign operations. Perry has the money to pay someone a lot smarter than me to make sure he gets on the ballot in Virginia, but apparently that didn't happen.

I really perceive from the Perry campaign that it is not grasping the fundamentals. And that has to change if Perry is going to turn things around in the primaries, let alone take it to Obama in the general

Perry has never had to deal with a campaign like this. In 2002, he had no Republican challenger and the Democrat was destroyed by a fellow Democrat in their primary. In 2006, the only serious Republican challenger was a secessionist who couldn't crack double digits, and the primary was a bunch of special interest candidates and an incompetent Democrat which led to Perry running away with 39% of the vote. In 2010, the Tea Party favorite self-destructed, Kay Bailey Hutchison ran a very incompetent campaign, and the Democrat was a Clinton insider whom Perry avoided debating.

So Yes, Perry probably coasted through his 2012 campaign for a bit because he hasn't had to face anything like this. But back in October when he brought Fabrizio and Allbaugh and some others on, things changed slightly. Not much mind you - still too many mistakes and a piss-poor showing in Iowa and the Virginia fiasco.

That to me is the basis of what you're talking about - I think you are right when you talk about there being two factions, because it explains a lot of Perry's problems. Combine that with a top pollster who is distracted by a serious scandal and you have a recipe for disaster.

If there are still two factions within Perry's campaign, that's 100% Rick Perry's fault. In a national campaign, there can only be one faction. It's not a good indicator of executive competence if you allow your own campaign to dissolve into factions and engage in infighting.

I'm not a Perry fan, but I've been interested and surprised at how Perry's campaign has been managed, both before and after the October shakeup.

I really perceive from the Perry campaign that it is not grasping the fundamentals. And that has to change if Perry is going to turn things around in the primaries, let alone take it to Obama in the general.

To add to it, Politico is reporting that Perry canned his ad buying firm.

That could be seen as a good thing for Perry, but the article says that Perry's spokesman was unaware of them being fired. If that's the case, that's twice in 5 days that Perry's spokesman did not have current information about an important event - first when Perry went back to Texas to reassess his campaign, and now this.

Either way, I don't know that the ad buying folks are to blame for the problems with the campaign - I thought some of the ads were effective in Iowa, unless they are being blamed for not helping him in Iowa.

The article mentions the Perry campaign is getting tight on money, and that's something I've heard elsewhere, but Perry has Super PACs backing him so I don't see why money would be an issue.