Rick Perry’s Path (Guest Voice)
Rick Perry’s Path
by Matt Mackowiak
You’re always strongest when you’re “thinking” about running for president.
Gov. Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor in the history of the nation’s second-largest state, is unquestionably the “flavor of the month.”
And his likely entrance into the 2012 campaign has many excited, but, as a recent Politico story reported, some in the Republican establishment feel threatened.
National polls show Perry in second place, behind frontrunner Mitt Romney, and his support seems to be growing.
I think Perry’s rapid national ascent can be explained by the fact that he combines the strengths of Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann without possessing either’s weaknesses. Perry has all the dynamism and base credibility that Bachmann boasts, but he has real executive experience and accomplishments and does not have her record of cringe-inducing statements. Perry has Romney’s national stature (he is currently the chairman of the Republican Governors Association) and national fundraising capacity (he raised $40 million for his 2010 reelection and has already broken RGA fundraising records), but he does not have a history of flip-flopping or have to deal with Romneycare.
Is Rick Perry the perfect machine for the 2012 cycle?
Let’s look down the road a bit:
One likely scenario is as follows: Perry gets past the Aug. 6 non-political prayer and fasting event in Houston (scheduled long before he began considering a run), which has garnered some level of national criticism, and then remains mostly silent the following week as the announced candidates criss-cross Iowa and debate on Aug. 11 on Fox News, all leading up to the expensive and potentially significant Aug. 13 Ames Straw Poll.
Perry then has a chance to steal the limelight: He can choose to announce for president any day after the Ames Straw Poll.
On the day of the Ames Straw Poll, Perry will address the RedState Gathering in Charleston, SC, where kingmakers Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) will be speaking and hundreds of conservative activists, bloggers and donors will be in attendance. While much of the national press focus will be on Iowa, the likely nominee will be in South Carolina revving up the troops.
He could announce in his hometown (tiny Paint Creek, Texas) and then visit all three early states in a three-day fly-around.
Or, if he wants to directly challenge President Obama, he can announce in Chicago’s Grant Park: “I stand before you tonight to tell you that ‘hope and change’ has failed. It’s time for tough, sober, effective leadership.”
At that point he will hold all the cards and all the national attention will turn to him.
Once he announces, Perry will face scrutiny, like all new candidates. Like anyone who has governed a large state for as long as he has, he has made decisions that have stirred opposition. The timid have few enemies. Rick Perry is anything but timid.
But he also has significant political strengths.
First, Perry has a wide range of strong relationships with many Republican governors. I could see him winning the endorsements of Haley, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM) and Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NM). Haley and Sandoval have states with early primary contests and would be very significant endorsements. These governors have credibility, stature and major fundraising capacity (especially Barbour), and the Perry campaign can roll these out once a week from now to February. How many governors will Romney have?
Additionally, I strongly suspect that if Perry runs, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) will not. Perry and Palin share a similar base and Perry’s candidacy gives Palin the out that she wants. She’ll announce she’s not running in September.
Given the burst he will enjoy from his campaign launch, Perry will be able to focus on two defining strategic objectives: raising money (with a heavy focus on bundlers who can successfully raise money without Perry’s personal appearance at events due to a shortened campaign timeline) and engaging in retail politics in the early states. Perry is mostly unknown in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and he will need to invest an extraordinary amount of time over the next four months to make up for lost time.
Can he raise the money he needs ($20-$25 million before the end of the year) while also running targeted, smart campaigns in each of the first three states? It will be tough, but it’s possible. And Perry starts in a strong position in both Iowa and South Carolina, given his strong record of social conservatism (Iowa) and Southern appeal (South Carolina).
Perry will get stronger every day. Other presidential candidates will drop out and endorse him. He will become the coveted anti-Romney candidate, if not before Iowa then weeks later after South Carolina. Is there any current candidate who would endorse Romney over Perry in the primary once they’ve dropped out? No.
Romney has a high floor and a low ceiling.
For Rick Perry, someone who’s always had a great sense of timing, the sky is the limit.
© Copyright 2011 Matt Mackowiak, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Matt Mackowiak is a Washington- and Austin-based Republican consultant and president of Potomac Strategy Group, LLC. Matt can be reached at matt@potomacstrategygroup.com.
9 Responses to “Rick Perry’s Path (Guest Voice)”
Perry will be a flash in the pan. In Texas where they already know him two polls have shown him at best in a dead heat with Obama. He will be the 2011/12 Giuliani.
He’s more serious than Guiliani ever was (so is any governor, including Sarah Palin earlier in Alaska, compared to any mayor of a big Blue Nation central city). I suspect he’ll be named as VP so as not to butt into Romney’s (and the GOP leadership’s?) plans and (so as also) to get the social and religious conservatives interested in voting. I still consider him (and the GOP Presidential nominee) to be “sacrificial lambs” in 2012; it still looks like Obama is assured, as of now, re-election. (Perry could “burn” one campaign and campaign year to gain nation-wide exposure to set himself up for 2016; note.)
May be the second largest state but there are a lot of dust devils and rattle snakes between people. This guy is another Bush clone nit wit. Texas hasn’t produced many competent leaders.
Well, there is the argument (made brilliantly and humbly by none other than me) that governors tend to take their personal and state’s style of governing to Washington (“to run Washington like their former state [government], and treat the federal city as if it were their former state capital”). We saw it with Clinton and with Bush.
Note that the federal Leviathan and its city tend to triumph in any kind of power struggle between an outsider (such as a new President) and itself. The Congressional “fixtures” along with the parasitic permanent staffers (worse than the lobbyists) and even GOP and Dem party elites — and the commentator and “journalist” fleas attached to all of them that make the city have a lurid celebrity culture now; they’re worse than the lobbyists much of the time — all have been there and will be forever*, “have seen them [Presidents] come and seen them go…” Ugh.
* Forever, that is, until entitlement reform and serious budget reform no longer can be deferred. Then it won’t be fun along with having grossly excessive power and influence, and theyll go.
Perry is a serious player with wealthy backers. I don’t believe he will take second chair in 2012. I think he knows this era of angry desperate voters is the best chance for Evangelical Tea Partiers.
In ’08 the Democrats had the enthusiasm and the GOP the embarrassment of a candidate promising to continue the fatal path of Bush Jr. This time the GOP represents a chance for change from the ineffective efforts of the Obama administration. The fear many people have of Perry and the Evangelical agenda may hold Democratic voters in line and make rational Republicans less eager to show up on election day. But I don’t believe Obama can hold the White House if Romney proves he can take charge of his party, reign in the zealots and secure the nomination.
The fear and loathing of the “tea party” largely-phantom people, plus the abnormal reaction to social and especially religious conservatives by the right is simply abnormal and the worst of it restricted to the far-left fringier reaches, the most alien to the mainstream by far, not the off-putting social and religious conservatives.
Certainly Perry must be shown as not limited in appeal to that group, social and religious conservatives, and of course the liberal media will do all it can to depict him as so limited in appeal (along with other attacks made).
I’m more curious (particularly after Dubya’s terms as President) if he’d try to come to Washington planning to be a “good time Charlie” stereotypical classic governor, or try running it like Texas. Hopefully he appeals to more people and might even strip Romney of some big GOP party-official and GOP contributor interest.
(I don’t like Romney and with what little I know about Perry I believe he could do better than Romney. However, I believe either, or a Romney-Perry ticket, would still lose to Obama and whoever might be his Vice President by them if Biden leaves.)
I think Perry has a very good chance of getting the Republican nomination. He has a number of weaknesses when it comes to the general election, though. The Texas Miracle argument that he thinks will promote his candidacy has some big holes in it. Many of the jobs don’t pay that well. The projected deficit for the state for the next two years was over $27 billion, with a current deficit over $4 billion. What did the Republican governor and legislature do? Cut deep. Cut vital things like education deeply. Is that really what can attract moderate Republicans and Democrats? Independents? Not likely. Then there’s e execution of a man who was quite likely innocent. And the cover up. Perry has a reputation in Texas of being the Teflon governor. I don’t think that will hold up in enough of the rest of the country to win the Presidency. I certainly hope not.
I think his largest obstacle will be “do we want another evangelical Texas governor in charge of our country?”
[...] can see how it works at this post on a political blog called The Moderate Voice, one of SendLove’s test [...]