Replies

I understand why people don’t support him. My question is why, if he’s toast and croutons and completely out of it, why are they spending so much time ATTACKING him? We don’t waste our time attacking Huntsman. And Perry gets attacked a lot more than Paul. Heck, Perry gets attacked more than Romney, and Romney is still battling for the lead.

But it’s all “Perry this”, and “Perry that”. Even in a thread about Cain/Gingrich, the perry haters couldn’t resist attacking Perry before the debate even started.

It’s like an obsession. And while being obsessed FOR a candidate is undestandable, I don’t get being obsessed AGAINST a candidate for being a lousy debater and having a bad presence.

My question is why, if he’s toast and croutons and completely out of it, why are they spending so much time ATTACKING him?

Hi Charles, I'd say the reason Perry is catching so much flak is due to the initial fervor his supporters pressed on other FReepers at the beginning of his campaign. I saw many people subjected to posts that ridiculed their support of other candidates in favor of supporting Perry because he could beat romney.

Many times the argument was used that people should drop their candidates in favor of Perry because he was polling higher at the time.

Many of us looked at his history and had his suspicions and debate on such topics were never resolved without someone ridiculing such concerns.

Then he did something spectacular - he actually performed the political equivalent of a "Hey y'all - watch this!" moment on live TV during a debate. It would not have been so bad if we didn't have previous reservations on the issue, if it hadn't been a MAJOR conservative issue and if his own history hadn't shown many, many liberal inclinations in the past. It just didn't support an overnight transformation into a conservative we could count on to represent us properly. The vote was "no confidence".

So now the screw has turned. Perry's about to be beat in his own home state of Texas and is polling in low single digits in most major primary states. He became a joke in short order to many of us, this was not just due to his performance where he destroyed himself, but the dismissive attitude many posters had towards candidates who are now so far ahead of Perry that there's almost no perceivable chance he can make any difference before the first major primary.

So yes, many of us have been justifiably dismissive of him.

However, we will welcome all of you with open arms when you are ready to drop Perry and support someone else who can beat both obama and romneycare...

But don't kid yourself, Perry is over. Speaking on behalf of many, we feel like we are approaching Titanic passengers drowning in the freezing water, offering them a hand into the boat and they are responding "What do you mean the ship sank?"

If there's a good thing I'll say about Perry at this point of the race, he has loyal friends. It just isn't enough now. It's time to reconsider and look at new alternatives. If us Palin supporters can do it, others can too.

I haven’t paid close enough attention to the dynamics of all the threads to form my own observation as to whether what you say is true or not.

BUT if there is an obsession in attacking Perry, there also is evidently an obsession in defending him. You may find that the latter is more reasonable than the other, but I find them equally worthy of avoiding.

You say if Perry is toast, there is no reason to attack him. Well, yes and no.

I’m not advocating it, but I think you have to agree that so long as he is in the race AND — unlike Huntsman — has (or may have) the favor of the big donors who could try to crank up his candidacy at any time — he could be seen as the worst of all things: a potential spoiler. He also could be viewed as continuing to suck of oxygen when, if he’s toast, that’s a big waste.

IOW, there’s toast and then there’s toast that can cause trouble without any potential for benefitting the process. Huntsman, thus, is “harmless” toast; he has and can have zero impact on the race. But maybe Perry is toast that can still gum up the works, mainly because he might still (however reluctantly) get the Romney elites to turn to him when they finally realize Romney can’t win.

The problem with that is that most in the base have concluded that Perry STILL could not win the nomination. Therefore, even if the elites go full-on for him, all that will happen is he will prolong the process until we get a nominee (who, again, will not be Perry).

OTOH, if you think Perry is NOT toast, why the absolute obsession with defending him?

As far as those seemingly obsessed with defending Perry, I’m not sure who they think their audience is. It’s clear that there are a lot of people in the base who just don’t like the guy. That is not changeable by people jawboning at them that they SHOULD like the guy or that it’s UNFAIR that they dislike that. That fact is only changeable BY PERRY.

So unless and until Perry changes the minds of people who just don’t like them (which they are perfectly entitled to not like him), the obsessive Perry supporters risk putting people off more. That’s just the way it is: it’s a social dynamic that is inevitable.

If the obsessive Perry supporters are hoping they are spurring on the elites to go big in supporting Perry as the anti-Romney, the elites are not reading FR. So, see the problem above.

As far as I’m concerned, the solution is to ignore, so far as possible, BOTH obsessive attacks and obsessive defenses.