Visual source: Newseum
Molly Ball:
Perry's national message was a carbon copy of his 2010 reelection campaign in Texas, complete with allusions to secession: anti-Washington, Tea Party-centric and -- as in the infamous anti-Don't Ask, Don't Tell ad -- culture-baiting. His twang, his boots, and his difficulty with syntax also were more than a little reminiscent of George W. Bush. It turned out these things weren't what voters were looking for outside the Lone Star State -- not even in South Carolina. The conservative candidates who surpassed Perry -- Gingrich and Santorum -- are both Washington insiders with a wonky bent. It may be that in the wake of Obama's perceived incompetence, Republican voters are looking for a candidate who knows how to work the levers of power -- or at least one who knows how to string a sentence together.
Dan Armina runs down the Twitter reaction from Perry's supporters:
Rick Perry, one of the biggest, most embarrassing flops in the history of American presidential politics, has decided to call it quits two days before he would have come in dead last in the South Carolina primary. It was an overdue decision, really, and not one that will devastate many supporters, since there are few supporters left to devastate. But there are some! And for those few remaining Perry devotees, this morning, the grieving process began.
Sean Trende:
I take Perry at face value when he says that he hadn’t really thought much about running before actually getting into the race. I suspect that, at some point in June or July, advisers began to tell him it would be a cakewalk to the nomination, given the weak GOP field. And given President Obama’s poor poll numbers, the presidency would be his. After being told that the prize was about to fall into his lap, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to claim it?
If Perry had actually planned and prepared for this run, things could well have gone much differently for him. His debate performances steadily improved over the course of the season, to the point where he was a credible debater at the end. Had Perry taken the route of most presidential aspirants, building up an organization over time and carefully preparing to run, he may have been able to perform well earlier in the debate cycle. Had that occurred, there’s a reasonable chance that he would now be the front-runner.
It wasn’t just the lack of debate preparation, however. Running for the presidency requires careful planning on one’s positions -- and the messages to support those positions -- on a wide variety of issues, particularly those that rarely come up in state government. And it requires preparing for very different electorates than those found in Texas.
The Los Angeles Times:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is frequently compared to George W. Bush, a fellow Republican Texas governor who went on to serve two undistinguished terms as president of the United States. But that's a grave insult to Bush. Perry, who dropped out of the GOP presidential race Thursday, is far more divisive, inarticulate, insular and insensitive than Bush ever was, which is why his departure from the national political scene is good news for everybody but late-night comedians.
Andrew Rosenthal looks back at Perry's greatest hits:
He refrained from offering the usual disclaimer, about everyone voting his conscience, before telling his remaining follower to back Mr. Gingrich, but the endorsement was a little odd nonetheless. “Newt is not perfect, but who among us is,” Mr. Perry said. “The fact is, there is forgiveness for those who seek god. And I believe in the power of redemption for it is a central tenet of my Christian faith.”
Meanwhile, ABC News was busily leaking details from an interview with Marianne Gingrich, Mr. Gingrich’s second wife, in which she reportedly says Mr. Gingrich asked her for an “open marriage.” “Not perfect” sure is a relative term.
In honor of Mr. Perry’s departure, I thought I’d borrow from American Idol, where every contestant who is voted off the stage gets a little video retrospective of their magical journey to near almost-stardom. It’s usually set to music, so with apologies to Dan Hicks, I thought the appropriate theme song here would be, “Now We Can Miss You Since You’re Finally Gone.”
Speaking of Gingrich, Dan Turner runs down what an old Gingrich speech reveals about the candidate:
His prescription for preventing school shootings is to return prayer to schools, improve the teaching of history (that is, the selective history Gingrich favors, meaning lots of lessons about George Washington's piety and the founders' Christian beliefs), to eliminate teachers unions (he never quite gets around to explaining how unions were to blame for Columbine, but apparently it has something to do with their protection of bad teachers), and to sue or shame the makers of violent movies, TV shows and games.
This is the world of Newt Gingrich, where self-appointed Christian mullahs decide what entertainment content is appropriate for the nation and mandate religious inculcation in schools full of children who share multiple faiths (or none at all). It is a world where, apparently, good Christian kids are never suicidally or homicidally depressed, so school shootings just don't happen. Which is a good thing, because in Newt's world, guns can be purchased by anybody at any time.
There's a possibility that Gingrich could emerge from the South Carolina primary as the new GOP front-runner. If that happens, you can expect the most vicious, divisive -- and mesmerizing -- presidential campaign in recent memory.