Did you think Rick Perry would actually win the GOP nomination? Yes, I know thousands of you have written blogs about how Rick Perry has let Texas burn, waged war on women, whored himself out, etc. as if we needed to warn the world of the dangers of an impending Perry Presidency.
Seriously, did you worry he'd win? Because I'm here to tell you it simply ain't gonna happen.
During the debate Rick Perry gave an answer that I surprisingly agreed with, and because of that he doomed his campaign:
But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society.
Well what seems to be reasonable to me has wingnutistan apoplectic.
Nativists funded by white supremacist John Tanton at NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies are touting a their new study damning the "Texas Miracle" that claims:
81% of the jobs created in Texas between the years 2007 and 2011 went to newly-arrived immigrants.
Piling on
Americans for Legal Immigration added:
Texas Governor Perry destroyed his chances of winning the GOP Presidential primary during last night's debate when he defended his support for in-state tuition for illegal aliens which is opposed by 81% of all Americans.
While the mainstream media, like
CBS says Perry had a "disappointing debate", and the
Associated Press is reporting:
Republicans in early voting states, once excited about the Texas governor's presidential bid, are openly questioning the strength of his candidacy.
The real danger for Perry' campaign lies in supposedly friendly territory where the reviews are scathing and the support non-existent. Fox News has
openly been favoring Romney in the past couple weeks and you know things are bad when
Fox's website uses a
Talking Points Memo story as a take down on Perry, stating:
Romney Eats Perry's Lunch at CPAC
And Fox's
Rich Lowry says of Perry's debate performance:
[T]he story was Rick Perry. A few weeks ago, the question was how far and fast he would ascend; now, after his third debate, it’s how much he’ll drop.
Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard said:
[The debate] was close to a disqualifying two hours for [Perry].
Peter Wehner at Commentary piles on:
I hope Governor Rick Perry enjoyed his six-week run as the front runner of the GOP field, because it’s now over.
National Review columnist
Mark Steyn filling in on Rush Limbaugh's radio show says Rick Perry:
has basically adopted the Democratic line now on the whole illegal immigration issue
Ouch.
Our good buddies over at Red State weren't any nicer. Erick Erickson said:
Rick Perry was a train wreck in this debate. He flubbed his response on Romney flip-flopping. He got the first question tonight and stumbled. Good grief.
Ben Howe requested conservative superman:
I saw a bumper sticker last year that said, “If Jimmy Carter gave us Reagan, then Barack Obama should give us GOD.” This is not yet turning out to be true. Things seem quite the opposite really. So far the only thing I see Barack Obama giving us is four more years of Barack Obama.
Instead of an assemblage of our best and brightest, articulating the values and ideals put forth so clearly by the tea party these last three years, we seem to have a panel of damaged goods best relegated to sniping at each other or making statements that cause their staunchest allies to stare in bewilderment.I used to like Michele Bachmann, but she lost me when she started screaming about 12 year old little girls every 5 minutes and seemed to believe that fostering 368 children qualifies her above the other candidates. She regularly attempts to appeal to the basest of emotions while trying to convince people she was the tip of the spear in Congress. My recollection of her time in Congress seems to revolve around fancy speeches and symbolic actions that moved the ball neither forward or backward. Also, she has big hair.
Santorum is great if he could escape the dungeon of single digit polling and focus a little less on the gaypocalypse. As Erick noted earlier, his answers made him sound like someone that would earn a nickname from Mark Halperin.
Newt says awesome stuff, but he seems to be working harder to tweak the debate topics rather than be president. If he wasn’t Newt, I have no doubt he could be a frontrunner. Since we have memory of the things he’s said and done since being in Congress, he continues to poll where he probably should poll. He has a great future in news contributing.
Ron Paul is an anti-Semitic insane person.
Gary Johnson is Ron Paul with less charisma.
Herman Cain is a great guy but he can’t seem to escape relative obscurity. Not to mention that his 9,9,9 plan creates a new tax, tax, tax.
John Huntsman is so slimy in his approach, I keep waiting for him to rip his skin off and reveal that he’s actually John Edwards.
Mitt Romney is a solid leader. Unfortunately, what he wants to lead us to might be so far from the ideals we’ve been espousing as to make one wonder why we bothered protesting in the first place. Plus: Romneycare people. Romneycare!? Are you kidding me?
And now Perry is losing me. In spite of what people think, I only battled what I considered silly vetting because i wanted to see what he was made of on my own, without beinf [sic] distracted by “true conservative” screams that he’s a commie who wants to strap kids to tables and forcibly inject them with a dose of mental retardation. Now that he’s been in a few debates, I feel that I’ve seen what he’s made of, and it makes me sad. He seems to have the debate skills of a mute foreign exchange student with all the wit of John Kerry. Meanwhile he uses lefty tactics like telling people that disagree with him that they “don’t have a heart.” When you have the highest job creation in the country during a recession that many blame on the incumbent, and you can’t get a Luntz panel to remember that because you spoke with all of the coherence of a dental patient with a numbed mouth, you may have issues in the generals.
Erick Erickson added:
Rick Perry stands on the precipice. He is about to fall off. If he wants to be the anti-Romney candidate, he needs to do a few things quickly. First, he needs to get a comprehensive economic plan out soon. Second, he needs to answer some tough questions on immigration. Third, he needs to talk about America more than Texas. Fourth, he needs to not lose the next two debates. He does not have to win. He just cannot lose.
Leon H. Wolf reminds us to not forget George W. Bush (personal to Leon, I won't):
That having been said, Perry’s third debate performance regressed from steady-if-unspectacular to has-problems-communicating. I am sure that many conservatives who watched the debate were unfavorably reminded of the last Republican President, and wondered whether they really wanted to spend another 4 or 8 years carrying water for someone who is incapable of defending himself from a hostile press in an articulate manner. Romney, by contrast, showed a practiced flair, deflecting even what should have been home run hits from Perry, and managing to sound convincing and convicted, even when speaking outright lies (such as his denial that his discussion of Romneycare changed between the hardback and paperback versions of his book). There is no doubt that on a national debate stage, Romney would clearly fare better in debates against Obama.
Only one member of the right-wing team,
Investor's Business Daily, seems to think Rick Perry isn't the target:
So enough with the circular firing squad. For the next debate, the GOP contenders need to understand that their real foe isn't each other. It is a name too infrequently mentioned in these debates — Barack Obama.