Posted on 09/23/2011 11:36:05 AM PDT by iowamark
ORLANDO – The first line of Rick Perry’s campaign obituary may have been drafted Thursday night: He got in too late.
It’s not quite time for his camp to panic but in his third debate in a month – nearly as many as he’s done in the entire decade he’s served as Texas governor – Perry demonstrated why so few presidential candidates who parachute into the race mid-campaign win the nomination.
Perry gave a foreign policy answer that offered no indication he’s thought about how to respond to threats against America, twice bobbled attacks on Mitt Romney’s well-documented departures from conservative orthodoxy, called immigration hard-liners heartless and, in what was otherwise his best answer of the evening, stretched the truth in the course of delivering a well-rehearsed line about why he mandated pre-teen girls to be vaccinated against HPV.
A more seasoned candidate would be better informed on national security policy, fluent to the point of knowing by heart his chief opponent’s core vulnerabilities, and would never offend his party’s base with such a pointed attack. And a more sure-footed one would have recognized that he couldn’t get away with the claim that he issued an executive order on HPV after being “lobbied” by a cancer victim—because it has been publicly established that he met the victim only after he made the decision.
Instead, after a roaring August start, Perry’s second consecutive lackluster debate performance will reinforce the growing view among some Republicans that he’s not ready for the big leagues.
As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News following the debate: “He’s still the rookie in the field.”
Equally threatening to the Texas governor, his stumbling appearances on national television have come as his on-the-fly campaign attempts to quickly build an organization and raise money ahead of the third-quarter deadline at the end of the month.
Grumbling has already begun about Perry’s operation and how they’ve not been prepared to handle the zero-to-frontrunner demands on the campaign.
One leading Republican said he’s given names of individuals – donors, former state party chairs — who want to be helpful to the campaign and that they’ve never gotten a phone call.
Recognizing the frustration, the National Committeewoman from Texas, Borah Van Dormolen, sent a blast email to fellow RNC members this week.
“I have received numerous calls requesting information on how to contact the Perry for President campaign team,” Van Dormolen wrote, including the email address for where to send the governor an invitation to appear at an event and the address of his finance director for those who want to help him raise money.
The upside of these growing pains, of course, is they reflect a campaign besieged with supporters. And, as Perry officials correctly note, it’s still early in the campaign—a contest that the governor only joined six weeks ago.
But it’s in part because he rocketed to the top of the field so quickly after getting in, creating such high expectations, that he’s now being damaged by sub-par debate showings.
In short, Perry’s command of the stage hasn’t matched his exalted status.
When he’s pitted alongside Romney, as he was Thursday, the discrepancy between Perry’s promise and his actual performance is glaring.
“Romney has the advantage of having run before and learned from it,” noted former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. “Perry got in late, and it will take him some time to get up to national speed. He has time to get up to speed, but he doesn’t have much margin for error.”
What may hurt Perry the most, though, is if the ongoing series of debates create the impression that he simply doesn’t have the capacity to get up to speed. If, after the four additional forums scheduled between now and the Iowa caucuses, Perry shows no ability to give a cogent answer on a foreign policy question or discuss the country’s domestic challenges in a way that veers from his top-line talking points, Romney’s slow and steady approach will have the former governor of Massachusetts positioned to take advantage.
“The bottom line is he’s failed to meet expectations in the last two debates,” said a veteran GOP operative who is neutral in the race but didn’t want to offend Perry. “He often starts off strong in replies but tends to wander, displaying a lack of intellectual discipline that doesn’t inspire confidence.”
Recognizing this vulnerability — call it a stature gap — Romney backers were ferocious in their assault on Perry following the debate here, suggesting that their rival was out of his depth.
“It really calls into question when he’s up for this,” said former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, a Romney adviser. “When you’re consistently having difficulty articulating yourself in a forum like that, it’s a problem.”
Romney officials were particularly tough in their critique of Perry’s vague answer on what he would do if he got a 3AM call alerting him that Pakistan had lost nuclear weapons to the Taliban.
“It was clear he had no idea what he was talking about,” said Romney adviser Ron Kaufman.
“I think a lot of being president, of getting ready to be president, is understanding the complexity of the world that you have to deal in, and I think you either naturally have that countenance and that demeanor, or you don’t,” added Romney donor and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, adding that at such difficult moments, “I think you want to have the mental faculties, the experience and be able to surround yourself with good people and get the job done, and don’t make too many mistakes.”
Perry campaign manager Rob Johnson lashed back at the criticism on the foreign policy question and touched on Romney’s core weakness.
“For anyone in the Romney camp to accuse someone of not being prepared, when they have different answers to questions every 24 hours, is ridiculous,” Johnson said.
But the Perry campaign plainly recognizes they’ve got to make the best of back-to-back poor outings. They came to the post-debate spin room prepared with a trio of talking points that conceded the underlying point about his debate weakness: that he’s only been in the race for a short while, that his uneasy stage performance demonstrates that he’s more genuine than Romney and that there was another successful Republican who purportedly wasn’t so good at debates.
“He’s been in the debate for six weeks,” said Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. “Some other people have been in the debate for six years.”
Pressed about some of Perry’s bumbling responses, Brownback invoked Republican royalty.
“People said that about Ronald Reagan in debates,” Brownback claimed. “They’d say, ‘You know he’s not as strong as he needs to be. He doesn’t seem to quite have the factual control the way I would like to see it.’ But you knew what was in Reagan’s heart, and that’s the thing about Rick Perry.”
“Perry’s plain spoken,” added Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon. “He’s not a slick politician. Romney’s run for president before so he likes to have these polished answers, but he’s also flip-flopped on everything from Race to the Top to Romneycare to taxes to abortion to guns. So I’d rather take a guy who’s not a slick, made-for-TV guy but who’s an authentic, real human being.”
Cannon added that the difference between Perry and Reagan, however, is that the Gipper had a knack for delivering memorable lines that more than made up for his meandering moments. In three debates, Perry hasn’t yet found a winning riposte to Romney along the lines of “I’m paying for this microphone” or “There you go again.”
And there is another distinction between the two: By the time he won the presidency, Reagan was on his third try.
“Perry’s plain spoken,”
Yes he is and he spoke so plainly about his support for illegal aliens getting instate tuition that he talked me right out of supporting him.
I think if Gingrich can roll out a cogent new Contract For America next week in Iowa a Gingrich/Cain ticket might be a winner.
Cain: Zero governing experience. Has never won a single election in his entire life.
Gingrich: The highest polling Negatives of any candidate.
Santorum: Just got noticed last night.
As it stands now, unless Perry gets his act together and engages in serious debate preparation, Romney is currently in the driver's seat.
The fork is in Perry....he’s done. I’m not a history major but I seem to recall that Abraham Lincoln was unknown at the time and he was the dark horse candidate. I hope and pray that Mr. Cain will follow Lincoln’s footsteps because I really think he is head and shoulders above everyone else so far and I don’t understand why he’s not doing better in the polls. He may be light in the foreign affairs issues but what did Obammy know about ANYTHING? If Cain would announce now who he would trust as advisors and appoint to his cabinet, he would leap out ahead.
Perry is another Obama is what I think. He has illegals running all around Houston, drunk driving,drug dealing, it looks like a 3rd world country in certain areas of town and God forbid the illegals follow the same laws as everyone else.HPD handels illegals like V.I.P.S
Both Perry and Romney should get out of the race now. Both proved conclusively last night that they do not have what it takes to lead the USA.
Both are Democrat Lite Establishment bots.
Thats what I thought last night too...I have never liked him for his border position and the entire way he has handled the illegals in Texas..
Typical nonsense from the “inside the beltway” liberal crowd.
They look at what is happening to Perry and see a failure of marketing. His handlers inserted Perry into the race too late, they say.
It never occurs to the liberal pundits that conservatives might actually be concerned about the substance coming out of Perry’s mouth.
When he calls people opposed to illegal immigration “heartless” and “divisive” and “anti-immigrant” we are looking at someone who is revealing in himself the soul of a liberal.
Someone who “errs on the side of life” by abusing his power as chief executive to unilaterally dictate injections for 12-year-old girls.
That he is someone who emotes rather than thinks. That is the mark of a liberal.
I am now wondering whether someone ghost-wrote his book for him. Was there some real conservative who helped him fill his book with red meat ideas for the right, as a marketing ploy to make him appeal to conservatives?
I think if Gingrich can roll out a cogent new Contract For America next week in Iowa a Gingrich/Cain ticket might be a winner.
Exactly my sentiments.
“Both Perry and Romney should get out of the race now”
I agree. We need to start over with someone other than these two clowns.
Remember, Ronald Reagan had not yet even declared for the presidency by this time the year before his election.
Yeah, but I think Romney has a ceiling kind of like Ron Paul. You see Ron Paul pulling respectable percentages in polls but you know he can't get any higher.
Remembering that Juan McCain beat Romney before demonstrates Romney's limited appeal. Romney could get a temporary lift from Perry's fall but after a while people will remember why they chose even Juan McCain ahead of Romney. I'm not convinced Romney can break out from the RINO segment of the Republican primary voters.
candidates overcome lackluster debate performances all the time, it is the immigration issue that stands to hound him out of this race
Not withstanding the chances of either, but I believe there is a Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice President not be from the same state. If Newt's home is still listed as Georgia, then one would have to officially claim a different state. I believe this was the case with Bush and Cheney and Cheney re-claimed his native state of Wyoming. Of course, for the nearly the last three years The Constitution has been pretty much null and void since the kenyan took over, so this might be overlooked also.
FUBO GTFO! 484 Days until Noon Jan 20, 2013
I don’t like Romney. I don’t trust Romney. Romney however does not spend his time on national tv in a debate personally attacking me.
Perry has twice now.
Got it exactly backwards. Stantorum and Gingrich are great sound bite politicians. They are great at selling other people's ideas. Neither of then has any key concepts or leadership principals nor serious programs.
The only real leader on that stage was Cain. He has a program, a plan for implementation and the communication skills to sell it to the American people.
72% of republicans polled don’t want Palin to run.IOW, 28% do.
24% of GOP primary voters would vote for Perry...76% don't want to vote for him...Get it
I disagree.
He could prepare all he wants but if his stance on illegals is to educate them then he can look elsewhere for votes.
Romney officials were particularly tough in their critique of Perry’s vague answer on what he would do if he got a 3AM call alerting him that Pakistan had lost nuclear weapons to the Taliban.
The question was a setup to see if Perry would be "more Bush-than-Bush" and charge into the situation. He said area allies are critical, and they would be if nukes fell into Taliban hands. He criticized Obama failures to shore up regional alliances citing the F-16 purchases vetoed by this administration. Lacking allies, we lack intelligence. Lacking allies, we lack access for our assets and technology.
The idea that we can be everywhere, see everything and know everything should've been settled with Iraq's WMD intelligence failures, the length of time taken to find Osama and a myriad of other problems.
Since Romney's officials aren't volunteering his own answer, I seriously doubt Romney has an answer.
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