Poor Rick Perry... his campaign's going nowhere, like a tumbleweed tangled in a barbed-wire fence. After swaggering onto the national stage as the hero come to save the country from cyber-Mitt, Perry has faded faster than a pair of Madras pants in a chlorine pool. Still, if his advisers are to be believed, things are going fine... just fine.
From Houston Chronicle Blog
For cheap symbolism, Rick Perry’s campaign headquarters a few blocks south of the state Capitol offers everything one could hope for, from front doors that construction workers were upgrading Friday to the old bank vault that houses two of the Texas governor’s most senior advisers.
The doors might symbolize a presidential campaign still in the making, barely two months old but already seen by its critics as needing a makeover. To Perry’s supporters, the old concrete vault could represent one of the campaign’s biggest assets, the $17 million Perry brought in during his first 49 days as a candidate. To his doubters, the vault could be seen as evidence of a campaign that has fallen short of early expectations and is already operating from a bunker.
I’m no symbologist, but if someone who claims that they can’t be bought for a measly $5,000 sets up their campaign headquarters in a bank vault, I would conclude that they really love money and want to be surrounded by it, and that they crave protection from their enemies and detractors.
Plus, if you’re planning to continue a pay-to-play plutocracy, you may as well set yourself up in a bank vault. That way, you needn’t be driving around town with briefcases and duffel bags full of cash. Another advantage of a bank vault is that very few people will ever find out what transpires inside. That’s clearly a consideration where Perry’s concerned.
Perry’s meteoric rise and subsequent free-fall have gotten the media’s attention, and as we’ve seen from Anita Perry’s weepy rants, this attention is just “brutal”. People are saying the most awful things about the campaign. It’s so unfair. But don’t worry. His intrepid advisers can see right through all that icky negativity.
Follow along below the black cloud hanging over the campaign for more..
Dave Carney, the campaign’s chief strategist, has nothing but disdain for the negative analysis of Perry’s prospects that has been emanating from political commentators back East, but he knows it is up to Perry and the campaign to change it.
“The media narrative is not helpful,” he said Friday afternoon. “But the reality is that message matters more than chatter. We need to get our message out there, and we need to do better in every aspect.”
The narrative he refers to says that Perry peaked shortly after he got into the race and has been such a disappointment in debates that he will have trouble reviving his hopes for the Republican nomination.
Carney isn’t buying it. “We are right on plan where we planned to be,” he said.
Seriously? Could we please get a copy of that plan, because if this is success, I can’t begin to imagine what failure would look like. Well, upon further analysis, it turns out that:
What he means is that in terms of money raised, organizations in place in early-voting states and policy proposals in the pipeline, everything is on track. Perry’s advisers believe that the governor’s performance in last week’s Washington Post-Bloomberg debate in New Hampshire was more than passable. His poll numbers might have fallen dramatically, but advisers contend that current polls have little meaning. “They are Polaroids,” Carney said.
Uh, Dave… are you really sure you want to be bringing up “Polaroids”? Your boss’ fabled indiscretions have probably been fully documented with Polaroids, digital photos, audio and video tape, and other forms of irrefutable documentation. So far y’all have managed to keep those skeletons in the Texas-sized walk-in closet of the $10,000-a-month rental mansion, but don’t go tempting fate. One of these days when you least expect it, Perry’s nice Christianoid supporters are going to be in for some shocking revelations.
Speaking of shocking revelations…
Some things have surprised campaign officials. One is that Perry has come under such fire on immigration. Advisers had assumed that Perry’s record dealing with border issues would satisfy immigration hard-liners. But they underestimated how his support for a Texas law that provides in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants if they have lived in the state three years and graduated from high school would undermine his conservative bona fides.
Who could possibly have foreseen that the Tea Party wouldn’t be thrilled about using taxpayer money to educate brown people?
Meanwhile, it should come as no shock to anyone that Perry’s long-awaited jobs speech relied on (yawn):
…a series of executive actions that would accelerate exploration and production of domestic energy resources and create, he said, more than a million jobs. The next speech, scheduled for Oct. 25, will outline his plan for the economy, which has been a big hole in his message.
After the economic speech, Perry will tackle border security, foreign policy and government reform. The package of speeches, campaign officials hope, will do what the debates have not done, which is to flesh out Perry’s profile as a conservative governor with the ideas and leadership qualities to be president.
Given the fact that the voters have the attention span of 9.99 nanoseconds, waiting a week or two between speeches is a complete non-starter. This glacial campaign pace makes one wonder what would happen when that phone rings at 3:00 a.m. with some international crisis. Will President Perry answer “I’ll get back to y’all in a week or two. Thanks fer callin’, bye fer now!”?
On and on it goes. Like the kid whose dog eats the homework night after night, Rick’s fumbling, stumbling, Brownian motion campaign strategy is wearing thin on his supporters. Donors wonder whether they’ll see any return on investment, voters wander off a cliff, mesmerized by Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 chants. Pundits shake their heads, speculating on the reasons that Perry’s campaign has cratered. His fundamentalist faithful, wondering why their prayers go unanswered, are having a crisis of faith. Anita wanders the countryside, weeping and whining about the brutality of the GOP and the media, and wonders whether God was just messin’ with them both.
Meanwhile, his witless advisers are sticking to the plan. We’re not retreating; we’re reloading. We got this under control. Just wait. You'll see...