| IOWA
Strong Debate
On Saturday, Rick Perry debated his opponents in ABC's Iowa caucuses debate. He put forward a solid performance, returning to his core (false) economic message and making no gaffes.
He even goaded Mitt Romney into making a serious misstep.
Perry accused Romney of flip-flopping on individual mandate health insurance.
An annoyed Romney challenged, "Rick, I'll tell you what, 10,000 bucks?" Romney said, ruining his years of effort to paint himself as an average guy. "$10,000 bet?"
This would seem an opportune time for Perry to capitalize on Romney's mistake and show why, despite his coverage for the past two months, he's still the best candidate for the GOP.
As the Texas Tribune reports, Perry is trying to do just that in Iowa, where he's focusing his socially conservative message.
He hopes to catch a final wave of primary voter discontent with Romney and Gingrich and make a McCain-like resurgence.
But Perry has already dirtied his reputation, likely beyond repair. At a small rally Sunday in Ames, Iowa, Perry was greeted by hecklers who criticized his anti-gay ad. Watch here.
Even for GOP voters for whom bigotry and stupidity is not a problem, it's clear that Perry is politically toxic, now more than ever.
Terrible Follow-Up
Later in the day, Perry made up a country and continued his uninterrupted string of devastating gaffes.
While attempting to coherently criticize President Obama's handling of solar energy company Solyndra, Perry said:
"No greater example of it than this administration sending millions of dollars into the solar industry, and we lost that money. I want to say it was over $500 million that went to the country Solynda."
Perry got both the name of the company wrong and completely made up a country.
Do Perry's advisers try to prepare him with any information about the world around him? Or does he refuse their advice because his ego is just that big? Or he's that disinterested in facts?
The Perry campaign has been using the same excuse for months now to explain away Perry's apparent lack of necessary knowledge to be president: voters want a straight-shooter, not a slick debater.
But Rick Perry can't shoot straight any better than he can debate. He simply does not understand, or apparently care to understand, the world around him. That is clearly not what voters are looking for, especially in the post-Bush years.
NATIONAL: Stranger than Fiction
The music in Perry's anti-gay "Strong" ad was written by Aaron Coplan, a gay 20th century composer.
Perry's hypocrisy (and campaign mistakes) know no end.
One gets the feeling that the post-mortem book on Perry's campaign is going to be an epic. |
