The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Congratulations, Perry Supporters!

Posted on | January 31, 2012 | 56 Comments

His doomed campaign pissed away $20 million and never finished better than fifth place anywhere.

Let’s see: Perry got 12,557 votes in Iowa and 1,766 votes in New Hampshire, for a total of 14,323 votes, and then quit two days before South Carolina, which was supposed to have been his “firewall” state. By comparison, the pointless campaign of Jon Huntsman got 739 votes in Iowa and 41,945 in New Hampshire, a total of 42,684 votes — nearly three times Perry’s total, and I rather doubt Huntsman spent three times as much money.

Just ask yourselves, Perrybots, what might have been possible if some other candidate — any other candidate, perhaps one who could remember how to count to three — had an extra $20 million to spend here in Florida. But no, you spent months telling the rest of us that Rick Perry was The Only Conservative Who Could Beat Romney, an argument you didn’t hesitate to repeat as late as December, long after it was apparent that he wasn’t ready for prime time. And you still refuse to admit that you were misled, and helped mislead others, into jumping aboard that hopeless Bandwagon to Loserville. And who warned you, huh?

“What I fear will happen is that Perry will spend several months sucking up media oxygen and burning through GOP donor cash, only to collapse early next year. This will have the effect of suffocating other conservative candidates, and thereby lead to … Romney 2012.”

Wrote that August 9. Perry’s failure was entirely predictable. But you knew everything and wouldn’t listen to me.

Howdy. Thank you, Erick.”

Comments

56 Responses to “Congratulations, Perry Supporters!”

  1. Ben David
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:07 am

    But in that same comment you wrote:

    I’m not exactly anti-Perry.  I got nothing against him personally or ideologically, and many of my Texas friends swear by the guy.
    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
    Which is basically what the rest of us had to go on as well: governor of a state that’s a poster-child for small government economic success. Executive experience, conservative cred, etc.

  2. Neal Dewing
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:12 am

    Sorry for having a candidate we liked. May as well get mad at Romney supporters for donating to their guy instead of yours. Jeez.

  3. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:25 am

    Can we finally dispense with the 800 pound gorilla in the room? We all know deep down what’s wrong with the GOP this year, and its not limited to the Perrybots by any means. The Republican elites are salivating with lust at the thought that this coming election should be a sure fire thing. That’s causing people to get greedy, and its causing them to make mistakes, and do and say all kinds of stupid things. Its making people lust after power, even people who should know better than to think they have a shot at it. People who in ordinary years would know better.

    Its making us all look like idiots, and its probably going to cause us to lose. Maybe lose big.

  4. Dave C
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:47 am

    Self inspection is a good thing. 

    Many of Perry supporters were about as radical as some of the Paulians..  

    Vote Rick Santorum.

  5. Hugh Vaughan-Williams
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:00 am

    Why don’t we  just  admit  that the front runners  all suck, however much we wish it were otherwise. Much as we dread  the prospect, we will likely get another four years of O. Let’s spend it  finding  substantive candidates worthy of  our passionate support,  and meanwhile  concentrate on  curbing O’s worst excesses.

  6. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:08 am

    Yep, he was quite impressive for somebody who acts like he’s suffering from early onset of Alzheimer’s.

  7. Ericdondero
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:13 am

    My dear Stacy.  A lot of us ex-Perry supporters like your boy Rick Santorum.  Problem is, we can’t get past the fact that he lost that campaign for US Senate to ultra-liberal snob elitist Bob Casey in Pennsylvania.  Call me stupid, but if I lost my local race for dog catcher, I wouldn’t declare for mayor two years later. 

    Tell Rick to go back home to Pennsylvania and win that Senate seat back for the GOP first.  Then maybe in a few years he can run for president as a WINNER. 

  8. Zilla of the Resistance
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:36 am

    The Perryists need to apologize for the way they savaged everybody who wouldn’t drink the koolaid or agree with them that islamoblow Perry was GOP Jesus. Has Ace apologized to Pamela yet? Has Zip apologized to Robert Spencer yet?  I doubt it. But now Perry is free to go back to vacationing with Muslim brotherhood operative Grover Norquist, building mosques with Aga Khan, and continue spewing on about how “islam is a religion of peace” as the mohamadeens continue to kill us.  Not to worry though, dhimmi tools, you still have dhiMITTude Romney who says islamic jihad has NOTHING too with islam and who has PRAISED genocidal islamic supremacist terrorists Hezbollah. America will continue to kiss raised mohamadeen asses under such leadership, and the islamization of America will continue unabated. Enjoy your burkas, bitches.

  9. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:37 am

    Exactly, RSM!  Then they could have fueled Bachman Cain Gingrich to power through it all to defeat Teh Romney!  Things would be awesomer than ever.  (I say this as someone who did give money to Cain.)

    …looking forward to finding out how I feel after voting for Ron Paul in the VA travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham of a primary.

  10. republicanmother
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:37 am

    At least Perry’s campaign proved that money isn’t everything, which is kind of comforting.

  11. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:39 am

    The problem with the Perry supporters is the problem with politics in America right now — it’s one thing to support a canidate; it’s quite another to let yourself get blinded by the hype.

    A close look into Perry at the start of his campaign would have alerted people to some potential problems (some very serious problems, imho) with him and advised a more, heh, conservative path in support of him (or not supporting him at all in favor of someone else).  That didn’t happen.
    It is rather like the Obama situation with the Dems.

    This is, after all, just human nature.

  12. Adjoran
    January 31st, 2012 @ 8:51 am

    I had high hopes for Perry, too, and expected he would end up with my vote and the nomination.  Stacy was right, perhaps not for the reasons he thinks, though.

    I said at the time the hype before getting in was setting up unrealistic expectations for a volatile electorate.  He was leading nationally by the time he declared, and all that was really known about him was the hype his supporters were feeding, including Erickson.

    He didn’t have the months of practice on the stump to refine his message and answer tough questions.  And he had the back surgery which contributed to his horrible debate performances early.  But after all the hype, the expectations were too high and he never had a real chance to recover.

    But most of what he raised, like Romney, came from his own national fundraising network, the traditional donors hadn’t committed and several still haven’t.  So I don’t think the money he raised had any real effect on Santorum.  Sucking the oxygen out of the air for a couple of months did.

    And, of course, Florida.  It does keep coming back to them moving up into January, forcing the other three early states ahead, too. But Stacy was on that one, too.

  13. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:03 am

    Yeah, we should have spent more time and attention on that paragon of brilliance, Herman Cain.  Talk about wasting time hitching your wagon to a failed candidate, imagine if you had seen ole Herm for what he was from the start, and instead started supporting Santorum from day one. 

    I think Rick Perry must have run over Stacy’s dog or something, because McCain’s one-man vendetta is really starting to be a little pathetic.  I mean the guy dropped out two weeks ago, and he’s still bitching about him.
    Santorum is a perfectly acceptable backup candidate, but Perry actually had the record of accomplishment that we should want in a candidate.  Yes, I know he fouled up the early debates, and he shot his own candidacy in the foot.  But it’s time to give it a rest already.  

  14. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:05 am

    Mitt Romney left office with a 34% approval rating.  The only reason he didn’t lose his bid for re-election was because he didn’t even bother running.  Newt Gingrich, meanwhile,  was booted out of town by his own caucus.
    So you might want to try another excuse for not supporting Santorum.

  15. Charles
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:34 am

    We now know Perry as front running for Newt Gingrich.

  16. Finrod Felagund
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:36 am

    At least Erickson got off the Perry bandwagon before it crashed, and famously called on Perry to drop out and endorse another candidate before South Carolina.

    Stacy, will you have the courage to do the same with Santorum, or are you determined to ride his campaign down to the bitter end?
     

  17. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:38 am

    It’s rather easy to still keep bitching about Perry, because even though the man himself is gone his malady lingers.

    Perhaps, if people will take the right lessons from this, it will be helpful.  So far, many have not — the only change for the better is that the tub thumping has become less loud due to lack of such strong enthusiasm.

    During the primary season of ’08, I called my eldest in to watch a video about Obama’s BAIPA stance.  I’m considered pro-choice by the way, but I told her that a person can learn a lot about someone from seemingly inconsequential things — the BAIPA stance said all there needed to be said about #ORD’s character and hence ability to lead.  And the information was out there, it was accessible to most people if they took the time and inclination to look at it — so there really was no cover up.
    Yet still people went for him; people who personally would not like that particular stance — they willed themselves to ignorance, not about a platform, but about the very nature of the person (which is a worse crime).  They even went so far as to wilfully fool themselves and support what they knew was really bad juju because it involved their superman.

    Same thing happened with Perry (“adios mofos” was not the call sign of a person who should be near the reins of power, and I think deep down a lot of Perry supporters knew it and know it…yet many will never admit to this).  
    Same thing seems to be more than capable of happening again.

  18. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:44 am

    I should probably clarify that this is the case with some of the supporters of all the canidates — thank God not everyone; at least America has that going for it still.

  19. Tennwriter
    January 31st, 2012 @ 10:01 am

    One suspects its not Perry, but the Perrybots.  Its also RSM taking a well-deserved victory lap when other ungracious sorts seem determined to deny him his due.

  20. richard mcenroe
    January 31st, 2012 @ 10:28 am

    Concern trolls on parade.  Republicans got slaughtered that election, IYRC, true blue or squish.  Santorum at least went down espousing the principles he believed in.

    The man won 3 races out of 4.  What’s Mitt’s record?  The man never quit a House seat he’d just won.  What’s Newt’s record?

  21. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 11:17 am

    That Florida move was probably Mitts doing. I’m sure Obama has got Eric Holder right on that. We should hear about it here in a few months, like say around the middle of October.

  22. Datechguy's Blog » Blog Archive » Learn from it, but let it go! » Datechguy's Blog
    January 31st, 2012 @ 11:45 am

    […] Datechguy | January 31st, 2012 When I saw this post at Stacy McCain’s site this morning I sighed: Just ask yourselves, Perrybots, what might have been possible if some other candidate — any […]

  23. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 12:23 pm

    Happy to have provoked a discussion. But has anyone now defending their pro-Perry prejudice stopped to ask themselves if they were sold a bill of goods? Was the governor’s previously good political reputation really a product of good public relations? Was the vaunted excellence of Perry’s campaign team really just a side-effect of Perry having previously won his victories in a predominantly conservative state? And was it possible that both Perry and his campaign team committed the fundamental mistake of believing their own hype?

    I notice that Pete Da Tech Guy links with a post scolding me for refusing to “let it go,” but people do not learn hard lessons by ignoring their failures, and the Perry debacle is a disaster too significant for people like Erick Erickson to be permitted to shrug it off as if it were meaningless.

  24. Paula
    January 31st, 2012 @ 12:36 pm

    Good grief, RS McCain why are you insulting Gov. Perry and his supporters again?   It makes no sense.   He brought great dialog and ideas to the table at the Debates.  In fact, many times the other Candidates would say, I agree with Gov Perry.”   Give the Texan a break, he’s not the enemy!!!!  Perry’s a good Christian man, a great Governor and  has America’s best interest at heart.

    Wouldn’t your time be better spent putting your energy into promoting Santorum? 

    This rhetoric is dividing us!!!

  25. Paula
    January 31st, 2012 @ 12:39 pm

     Something weird happened.  It’s unseemly.

    Color me disappointed 🙁

    Kumbaya My Lord Kumbaya……….I guess the sing a-long has to be cancelled. lol

  26. Finrod Felagund
    January 31st, 2012 @ 12:47 pm

    As much as I hate to say it, since I was a huge fan of his, Herman Cain’s campaign was equally as big of a failure as Rick Perry’s.  While an argument can be made that Perry fans used more hyperbole than Cain fans, still both candidates ended up in the same place: with 0 delegates and endorsing Newt Gingrich.

  27. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 12:56 pm

    I’m sure part of the angst here is due to the difference between pre-October and post-October Perry fans.  As a pre-October Perry fan, I feel like I’m lumped into the post-October fans, and get annoyed by this sort of thing, when it’s probably not really directed at me, especially since I’m a secondary participant in blog stuff, and not terribly active at that.

    To be honest, I hadn’t completely written him off, but more due to how uninspired I was by the rest of the field than anything positive he’d done.

  28. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 1:14 pm

    Paula, one has to ask the question: was he really all those things?

    There are those who could make the argument that all of those things were merely part of the hype, a method of deflecting any genuine critical look.

    It is immaterial in regards to Perry now, but it still holds true for any canidate still out there (and, to the voters — because in a sense politicians become what their ardent supporters wish them to become just as much as vice versa, and this may not be the sum total of reality although it takes reality’s place).  Perhaps this is the lesson from all of this that everyone should take to heart.

  29. Dave C
    January 31st, 2012 @ 2:41 pm

    One thing I have to ask is if a Democrat Governor signed an Executive Order mandating that all kids 13 and older need to get a Guardicil shot is how would they react then. 

    Would they defend or denounce the order? 

  30. Jack Reno
    January 31st, 2012 @ 2:52 pm

    Screw “candidates.”  Ask if the conservative blogospherre “had an extra $20 million to spend. ”

    Republican conservatives: Effing pikers. The whole puking lot of them.

  31. Bob Belvedere
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:07 pm

    Yeah, Erickson was the opportunist rat leaving the sinking ship.

  32. WyBlog - Tunicated Tuesday Turmoil, from Florida flows flagitious flummery
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:09 pm

    Tunicated Tuesday Turmoil, from Florida flows flagitious flummery…

    Then again, Stacy McCain seems to be blaming Perry supporters for Santorum’s anemic poll numbers….

  33. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

    Wouldn’t your time be better spent putting your energy into promoting Santorum?

    And with this question, I think you may have answered your first one. 

  34. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:21 pm

    Depends. Does your mythical Democrat Governor provide for an opt-out like Governor Perry did?

  35. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:25 pm

    I want to make it plain, on paper, as a matter of record, Perry was the best candidate of all the ones who actually ran, and of all those who were considered, he was second only to Palin. Where he screwed up was in his tactics and strategy, which is probably a matter of listening to the wrong people. And then of course there were the debates. Being good on paper isn’t good enough if you aren’t ready to or for some ready just aren’t able to make the sell. And Perry just couldn’t make the sell and seal the deal. It was his presentation which was flawed, across the board. There at the last, we got a hint of the kind of candidate he could have been, at his best, but by then it was far too late. Its a shame, because he could have cleaned Obama’s clock like no one else could have come close to doing, including probably Palin.

  36. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:49 pm

    Perry was not a good canidate; he was not so good on paper as the hype said he was.
    Again, it was all there if one cared to look into it, so no cover-up.  
    It was more than just his presentation that was flawed, but the presentation is what did him in (perhaps because in it there was a glimmer of the sort of person he actually is?) — so thank goodness for small wonders, but in the process nothing was learned from it, so no good there.

  37. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 3:55 pm

    I agree that he wasn’t as good on paper as the hype said he was, but that’s not really saying much.  Still, I think that @ThePaganTemple:disqus  is right about him still being better (on paper) than all of the other candidates.

  38. Dave C
    January 31st, 2012 @ 5:05 pm

    Don’t dodge the question.  And an ‘opt out’ of a mandated government order doesn’t sound very conservative.

  39. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 5:21 pm

    I live in a state with an HPV vaccine mandate passed under a Democratic governor.  I don’t have much a problem with it.  Frankly, I don’t see it as much different than all of the other vaccinations required for children.   We could argue, I suppose, about the role of government and public health, but I’m far from convinced that there’s a big problem with respect to vaccinations for children.

    I guess my main concern would be the issue of cost effectiveness at scale, though I’d still be willing to pay for it for my child. I’m speaking as a father who already planned to have his daughter vaccinated regardless of any mandate.  Cervical cancer is certainly not a polio or measles level of problem.  In that regard, I’m pretty happy that we’ve solved enough of the giant health problems that we’re tackling stuff like this.

    The worst arguments (aside from paranoid anti-vaccination nonsense) against it are those stating that this encourages under age sex.  People claiming this are immediately suspected (by me) of dishonesty or an unnatural hormone imbalance.

  40. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 5:28 pm

    Eh…I guess I forgot to address the way in which is was mandated.  I’m not a fan of legislating via executives, at state or federal levels, so I definitely wouldn’t like that.  And I didn’t like that from Perry, either, though I’m not terribly familiar with Texas law and his delegated authority in this area.

  41. I’m sure there’s medication for whatever Stacy McCain’s got. So please hit his tip jar so he can afford some. « The TrogloPundit
    January 31st, 2012 @ 6:14 pm

    […] rest might be just what McCain needs. In a nearly unheard-of (I kid again) bout of told-you-so-ism, McCain writes: Just ask yourselves, Perrybots, what might have been possible if some other candidate — any […]

  42. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

    A fellow that likes to direct the affairs from his state around the legislature by  executive fiat (and the legislature has had to call him down on things before, which he has only grudgingly accepted), who appears to engage in pay for play as a matter of course, who doesn’t have a problem pushing for things that don’t better the lives of his state’s citizens rather helps the concerns of his donors including foreign interests, who isn’t above populist demogougery and intimidation of the often lowest sort….
    and let’s not forget that there are rumors that he once quipped on his turning Republican “the only difference will be I’ll vote for the same things, just with an R after my name”.Yeah, on paper he was the perfect person to put up against Obama.Now, there are many that would argue these are all charges used by the left to smear him, but the fact still stands that there are reams of articles written about him that state just those very things.  Did his supporters think that those would not be used against him by Obama, especially in light of deflecting any criticisms Perry could take to him?He wasn’t a good canidate.Perhaps it’s time we started looking at how the opponent of Obama distinguishes himself from Obama, rather than getting too far into intricate and nuanced paths to victory.  Sometimes the best answer is the simplest one.Find the person who best defends and upholds the Constitution, best serves and represents the people, and isn’t just like Obama.

  43. Steve in TN
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:10 pm

    Wasn’t your mistake with Cain as bad?  If you recall, I and others were as strident in warning you about Cain as you were about Perry.

    Pretty much time to let it go.

  44. Steve in TN
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:12 pm

    No, one does not have to ask.  The record states that Perry was hugely successful in Texas.

  45. Steve in TN
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:15 pm

    Perry was not a good canidate; he was not so good on paper as the hype said he was.

    Calling BS on this one.  Perry’s record in Texas is second to none. 

  46. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:22 pm

    I’m waiting for the part where you show that anyone else in the race was a better candidate.

  47. Anonymous
    January 31st, 2012 @ 7:22 pm

    He doesn’t govern that way here in TX. We’ll keep him.

  48. ThePaganTemple
    January 31st, 2012 @ 9:25 pm

    The worst arguments (aside from paranoid anti-vaccination nonsense)
    against it are those stating that this encourages under age sex.  People
    claiming this are immediately suspected (by me) of dishonesty or an
    unnatural hormone imbalance.

    They’re suspected by me of being full of fucking shit.

  49. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 11:27 pm

    Against some of those made to tailor negatives (and his general demeanor — “adios mofos” has to be factored in), I’d say just about every other person in the race was just as good or better (and that ain’t sayin’ a whole heck of a lot, considering some of the baggage the others had).

    Now, I suppose we could have asked the entire state of Texas to have run as a canidate, but that seems a bit ungainly so not a possibility. (yeah, I think the whole state has basically the reason for any favorables with Rick).

  50. Pathfinder's wife
    January 31st, 2012 @ 11:32 pm

    I think I just answered you above.  The  state did make it possible for him to have such a good conservative record.

    What the guy has actually done with it has been a bit questionable (deals with foreign countries to run toll roads at a profit for them, all the while making some very questionable imminent domain moves?  didn’t Bush get hammered with the ports deal? and that is just one example).