So large chunks of the Texas capitol press corps ran up their air miles yesterday to South Carolina so they could watch Gov. Rick Perry make his well-telegraphed announcement about running for the GOP nomination for president. Meanwhile, he got soundly thrashed in the Iowa Ames Straw Poll – by Congressman Ron Paul.
Yup, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann may have won the highly inaccurate Republican presidential barometer with 29%, but the Texas ex-Libertarian came in second with 28%. Perry, who was not on the ballot but benefited from a massive write-in push, crept in at sixth with 8%.
Not that Perry was supposed to be caring, because he was at the RedState Gathering in Charleston, rolling out his presidential campaign. It was no surprise: His staff had confirmed his announcement last week to the Associated Press, and his campaign website had already gone live before the press event. Funnily enough for a man that spent last weekend daubing himself in ink from the bible at The Response, the speech was very light on religion. Instead, he concentrated on his military career and that of his father, the Texas “Economic Miracle” and (in a dog whistle for the Red State crew) how Obama was turning his back on Israel.
One big question about the announcement is, why didn’t Perry make his announcement in Texas? Several members of the capitol press corps have been joking that it must have been something we wrote. Possibly it’s because RedState is the kind of ‘news outlet’ that will announce that Perry’s sixth placing made him clearly the big winner” in Ames.
However, it might have been to avoid local opposition. After all, Perry is not the darling of the entire Texas GOP, and the Republican Liberty Caucus fired off a press release on Friday warning out-of-state Republicans “Don’t Believe the Hype.” The caucus accused Perry of a “tax and spend record,” abusing state incentive programs like the Texas Enterprise Fund, and raised the specter of his mandatory HPV vaccination order. Austin-based caucus Secretary Dave Nalle said, “Perry has a unique talent for finding new ways to raise taxes and loves to use taxpayer money to subsidize his business cronies.”
The Ames Straw Poll results are fascinating. The real takeaway is that the average Ames pollee is out on the farthest twigs of the Tea Party branch. Out of the top five, the most moderate name was super-conservative and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (14%), whose third place finish was so weak that he has already bailed from the race. The number crunchers over at FiveThirtyEight have some bleak news for Perry: If their calculations hold, he will only come third in the Iowa caucus – again, trailing Bachman and Paul. The American Conservative has already written up that Paul “gained the most from Ames” in their year book. As for Perry, he is described as “over-rated” and any measure of success is down to “a lack of scrutiny of his record and dissatisfaction with the existing field of candidates.”
Oh, well, at least Stephen Colbert‘s Make a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow SuperPAC still loves him, as shown by this latest ad.
This article appears in August 12 • 2011.
