| SUPER PAC TO THE RESCUE
On Wednesday, pro-Perry Super PAC "Make Us Great Again" released "Newsreel," an attack ad against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
Much like Perry's own ad released last week, "Newsreel" highlights Gingrich's ethics violations and Romney's history of support abortion rights and mandated health insurance.
The ad calls Perry the "true conservative" Republicans can trust.
Yeah, Rick Perry's really trustworthy. This coming from a Super PAC headed bY a former Perry chief of staff with whom the Perry campaign appears to have illegally coordinated on ad footage earlier this year.
VIRGINIA: No Show
On Friday, news broke that the Perry campaign failed to gather the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the Virginia Republican primary ballot.
This is the latest in the epic string of gaffes Perry has committed in the campaign.
TEXAS: Two-Step
On the campaign trail, Perry rails against dependence on the government and scorns public programs meant to support Americans' pocketbooks.
But Perry doesn't believe in any of that when it's his own pocketbook at stake.
Perry has now officially retired from Texas public employment.
Through a loophole in the rules of the Texas Employee Retirement System, Perry will collect his annual salary of $150,000 from being governor and his new annual pension benefits of $92,000 a year.
The problem isn't Perry's "retirement" as such - it's perfectly legal, though strange.
The problem is that in his personal life, Perry reaps the benefits of public pension systems, but goes around the country tearing them down and tying them to a "Ponzi scheme."
IOWA: Dreaming
As Perry's Iowa bus tour rolls forward (though he's back in Texas for the holidays), he's saying just about anything hokey to pick up some desperately needed momentum.
Here are some choice quotes.
On Monday in Muscatine, Perry compared to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a "modern day Bonnie and Clyde".
Later in the day at a nationally televised teleconference from Iowa, Perry said his desire to improve the economy was "very Biblically based."
He went on to say, "I prayed right before I walked over here that I wouldn't make any mistakes that my friends in the media would be able to put on television. I pray a lot because I'm prone to make a lot of mistakes."
Really - you pray because you're prone to making political gaffes?
Perry clearly hopes that his inability to go more than 48 hours without embarrassing himself and our state comes off as presidential to the average Iowan Republican voter.
"His pitch these days is humbler, that of a flawed but earnest candidate - a Christian and a military man who is not a grandfather but hopes to be someday. A public servant who fears deeply for the nation's future," the Washington Post explains.
Voters clearly aren't buying it. In Iowa polling, Perry hovers around 10 percent with evangelical novelty candidate Rick Santorum.
Not surprisingly, Perry loses by double digits to President Obama in a hypothetical general election matchup.
Rick Perry is a wholly second-tier candidate, and has been since September. His numbers aren't improving anywhere.
Republican primary voters may not like idiocy in their faces, or they simply don't think a Bush clone will sell in the general election.
Either way, Rick Perry has just a few weeks before he returns to Texas with his tail between his legs. |
