Category: Rick Perry

#VVS11: Campaign Spin Wars Follow Values Voters Summit Straw Poll

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Following up on the earlier post about the Values Voters Summit presidential straw-poll results, we continue to the spin phase of the event, where people tell us what it means. Most interesting to me was a story in the liberal New Republic by Simon van Zuylen-Wood:

The story from Day One of the Christian conservative powwow was not merely that Cain killed it and Perry underwhelmed. That was a foregone conclusion before either of them spoke — when Texas megapastor Robert Jeffress introduced Perry onstage, he tried to exhort the crowd with the unfortunate question, “Do we want a candidate who is skilled in rhetoric or one who is skilled in leadership?” (Confused applause.)
The bigger takeaway was this: Perry, the GOP frontrunner most attuned to the persuasions of the Christian right, completely blew his opportunity to win them over. . . . Instead it was Cain, not known for his religious views, and in fact targeted at the event by the National Organization for Marriage for not having signed a couple of their pledges (the other frontrunners have), who galvanized a ballroom full of Evangelicals and born-again Christians with rousing promises to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and protect unborn children.

Just to give you an idea of why, when it comes to public speaking, Herman Cain stomps the competition like Godzilla stomped Tokyo, here’s a brief clip from his Friday speech. He had just criticized the “Occupy Wall Street” protests and the crowd leapt to its feet cheering:

With impeccable timing, Cain followed up by reiterating and expanding the point, drawing another round of applause. Nobody else in the 2012 presidential field can fire up a Republican crowd the way Herman Cain can. And you’ll excuse me for thinking that getting Republicans fired up is a big part of what will be needed to beat Obama in 2012.

Cain’s critics like to talk about his gaffes — the Muslim thing, the “brainwashing” comment, etc. — but grassroots Republicans seem to understand that such politically incorrect moments are to be expected from a guy who makes a point of being “Not a Politician.” There is less forgiveness for Perry’s gaffes, including such unforced errors as this:

A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ” and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney’s religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney “is not a Christian.”
The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.
And it raised immediate suspicions that the attack might have been a way for surrogates or supporters of Mr. Perry, the Texas governor, who has stumbled in recent weeks, to gain ground by raising religious concerns about Mr. Romney. Mr. Jeffress similarly attacked Mr. Romney and his faith during the 2008 campaign.

For the sake of decorum, let’s not consider whether Pastor Jeffress was theologically accurate in his description of Mormonism as a “cult.” Rather, let’s ask the less esoteric question of whether Rick Perry benefits from having one of his proxies raise the issue of Romney’s heterodoxy. Perry’s trying to win an election, not leading a seminary discussion. Playing the Mormon card against Romney is, at the very least, going to cost Perry points for poor sportsmanship.

Keep in mind that evangelical Protestants aren’t generally big fans of popery, either, but that didn’t stop the Catholic candidate, Rick Santorum, from placing third in the Values Voter Straw Poll.  The Santorum campaign was celebrating in their press release:

October 8, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Beynon – 703.307.8633

SANTORUM DOUBLES
PERRY & BACHMANN
Values voter straw poll results once
again show Santorum on the rise

Verona, PA — Continuing a trend that started at the Ames Straw Poll, and continued in both Pennsylvania and Florida, Rick Santorum proves once again that the combination of the right message, right candidate, and hard work is the clear path to winning the Republican nomination. Senator Santorum’s total — 16% — was double that of media anointed frontrunners Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and quadruple that of 2007 Values Voter Summit Presidential Straw Poll winner Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA).
Senator Santorum said: “Values voters know me very well. We fought together and we won together on important issues like ending partial birth abortions, welfare entitlement reform, and protecting traditional marriage between one man and one woman. The legislation we fought for changed this country for the better, but we blinked and this President has changed this country for the worse; however, the values voters know we can restore the foundation of America and do great things because we’ve done them before. I thank them for their support in the past, their support today, and their support in the future.”
Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: “Values voters got to see every candidate side-by-side, including the media anointed frontrunners, and the differences were clear. It’s no wonder Senator Santorum’s vote totals doubled-up Governor Perry’s and Representative Bachmann’s, and quadrupled Governor Romney’s. Rick Santorum is the only one who has led and recorded victories on the issues across the spectrum — social, economic, and defense — and the voters know it.
Senator Santorum’s strong third place finish at the Values Voter Summit Presidential Straw Poll — ahead of Governor Rick Perry, Governor Mitt Romney, and Representative Michele Bachmann — is another in a string of momentum building and expectations defying finishes. In May, Senator Santorum won the only statewide straw poll in the First-in-the-South state of South Carolina. In August, Senator Santorum, though outspent 10:1 by his opponents, finished a surprising 4th at the Ames Straw Poll. And then in September, Senator Santorum again surprised prognosticators by finishing 4th at the Presidency 5 Straw Poll in Florida and winning the only statewide straw poll in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

Santorum keeps out-performing expectations, chugging along as he says like “The Little Engine That Could” and — with Perry weakened and Bachmann now obviously fading — he’s in better shape than ever. ABC News makes a point in this article:

Santorum is not running in place like Jon Huntsman, but it’s unclear when his moment will come? His national poll numbers remain low, although the candidate says he does not pay any attention to the dismal numbers.
“I don’t want to be depressed by watching national polls,” Santorum said. “I just tend to focus on what we’re doing on the ground and know, just like in the Ames Straw Poll where no one gave us any chance, every poll said we were way, way back in the back and we finished a pretty strong fourth.”
Santorum’s campaign has held more than twice as many events in the Hawkeye state as any other 2012 candidate.

Iowa has become practically a second home for Santorum. For now, he and the other GOP candidates are heading to New Hampshire, where they’ll debate Tuesday at Dartmouth College.

PAULBOT-MANIA: Ron Paul Supporters Buy Victory in ‘Value Voters’ Straw Poll

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The question to be asked is not whether it is unfair for the Paul campaign to keep doing this, but why the rest of the GOP field can’t spend a few bucks to do it themselves. Dave Weigel at Slate reports:

He beat out seven other candidates and “undecided.” The full results, with 1,983 ballots cast:

Ron Paul – 36.9% (732)
Herman Cain – 22.5% (447)
Rick Santorum – 16.3% (323)
Rick Perry – 8.4% (167)
Michele Bachmann – 7.9% (157)
Mitt Romney – 4.4% (88)
Newt Gingrich – 2.7% (54)
Undecided – 0.7% (13)
Jon Huntsman – 0.1% (2)

In a post-vote press conference, FRC President Tony Perkins made sure to note that 600 people had bought tickets for Saturday only — a none-too-subtle hint that Paul’s supporters had over-represented themselves.
“Do the math,” said Perkins. “Ron Paul and his campaign are very well organized.”

What did 600 tickets cost the Paul campaign? And what would have been the publicity value if, for example, the Rick Perry campaign had paid for 1,000 of their supporters to attend the summit? Perry raised $17 million and he can’t afford to buy a straw poll? Your stupidity is not someone else’s fault. Beyond that, the story is:

A. Herman Cain continues his momentum; and
B. Santorum got twice as many votes as Bachmann.

This pretty much puts a fork into the Bachmann campaign. If she can’t beat Santorum in a straw poll at a national conference of social conservatives, Bachmann probably can’t beat Santorum in Iowa, either.

UPDATE: Jazz Shaw at Hot Air: “Ron Paul brings home the bouquet for best organizational skills at a conservative event .”

And by “organizational skills,” he means, the willingness to spend money on grassroots activism, i.e., offering free tickets for any Paul supporter who wanted to come vote for their guy.

UPDATE II: My buddy Joe Fein has shown how the Paulistas won — “stole” might be too strong a word — the California GOP straw poll.

Stipulate that the Paul campaign operates according to the “By Any Means Necessary” radical principle. Nevertheless, the point to which I wish to call the reader’s attention is this: The Paul campaign is smart to spend money on getting their supporters to events, and other campaigns are stupid in spending money to hire a bunch of staffers and consultants who don’t necessarily provide value-added to their efforts.

Suppose you are a college kid who might be willing to support a Republican presidential candidate. Now, suppose that you could actually get to meet that candidate, and get free travel to events where that candidate appears. OK, furthermore suppose that the campaign had a sort of Amway incentive deal where, if you were campus activist who could sign up a dozen of your college buddies to accept the same free-travel deal, you’d get a small commission for every warm body you delivered on the Republican candidate’s behalf.

Shouldn’t Republicans be able to understand how the Ron Paul campaign is using market incentives to build their movement?

Why, then, are most GOP presidential campaigns top-heavy affairs that spend ridiculous sums on “media consultants,” etc., rather than to use their money the way Ron Paul’s campaign uses their money?

Like I said: Your stupidity is not someone else’s fault.

Why Dan Balz Is Wrong

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Two words: “Conventional wisdom.”

With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie forgoing a run for the Republican presidential nomination, two questions hold the key to the future of the GOP race: Can Mitt Romney finally expand his support within the party, and can Rick Perry bounce back?

Just for the sake of argument, let’s take Dan’s “two questions” seriously, in which case the answers are:

1. Who cares?

and

2. Not bloody likely.

As to Dan Balz Question One, if Mitt Romney manages to win the nomination, all the conservative spokesmen currently denouncing Romney as a worthless RINO will take a deep breath, put their integrity in a lockbox, and spent the months leading up to Nov. 6, 2012, proclaiming that Mitt is the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. So it doesn’t matter, at this point in time, whether Romney can “finally expand his support.” What matters is whether any of the other candidates can put together enough mojo to beat Romney for the nomination.

We won’t know the answer to that before next April, so we’ll leave the cart of analysis behind the horse of electoral facts, and not borrow tomorrow’s troubles with premature worries about where to find the best price on an Integrity Lockbox™.

To fully explain why Dan Balz Question Two is utterly wrongheaded would require more words than I’d care to write today, so I’ll just quote myself:

“There have been a few little things … that lead me to think Perry is a lot less certain ultimately to win the nomination than some people seem to think. 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.”
— Aug. 9

“Dude. When your “conservative” candidate makes Mitt Romney look like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it’s over.”
— Oct. 1

There are some issues a Republican can afford to be wrong about, but immigration isn’t one of them, and Perry’s unforced error — telling conservatives “you don’t have a heart” — is also a fatal error. Seventeen million dollars won’t be enough to buy back the credibility he lost with that one phrase.

All my friends who bought that Texas pig-in-a-poke and jumped on the Perry bandwagon with both feet — you know who you are — are currently doing their Kübler-Ross thing because they don’t want to speak those four fateful words: “Stacy McCain was right.”

But while my friends continue to deny or defend their own wrongness, thereby depriving me of timely credit for my rightness, I must look forward to try to discern what comes next. As I explained last night, there are reasons to think Rick Santorum could be on the verge of a breakthrough: The wheels are falling off Bachmann’s campaign, and she was previously considered the pre-emptive favorite in Iowa. So if Santorum can show strong in the next two debates (Oct. 11 at Dartmouth and Oct. 18 in Las Vegas), he might be the “flavor of the week” by Oct. 19.

That’s all the more reason to write off Perry’s chances of recovery. Santorum is a brutal counter-puncher in debates, and Perry’s got a glass jaw. As I noted the day after the Orlando debate, several observers had especial praise for Santorum’s performance there.

And what the hell, right? Santorum’s got nothing to lose by an all-out kamikaze attack on Perry: If Santorum gets hurt by the blowback, so what? He’s already in single digits nationally, and his hard-core base of Christian conservatives in Iowa isn’t going to abandon him for being “too mean” to Perry. Furthermore, the guy who does a savage debate takedown on Perry is going to buy himself some MSM coverage, and even if the liberals on MSNBC despise everything Santorum stands for, they’ll cheer him for dismantling Perry.

Dan Baltz may not have noticed, as I did, that Santorum just made another three-day trip to Iowa. With Bachmann hurting and Perry melting down, the Hawkeye State is wide open for a Republican who refuses to apologize for being a pro-life Catholic.

Of course, I’m the conductor calling “all aboard the Cain Train,” but I don’t want anyone to be blindsided if, two weeks from now, the talking heads on TV are all about Rick Santorum. Even though he’s not my horse in the race, I’ve felt he was overdue for some respect ever since I covered his barn party in Roland, Iowa.

Should my prophecy prove correct, don’t look for this front-page headline in the Washington Post: “Stacy McCain Proven Right — Again.” My point is that you’re never going to see these things ahead of time if you let Conventional Wisdom peddlers like Dan Balz prejudice your thinking.

Rick Perry Dissed by ‘Most Influential Blog in the Conservative Movement’

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If I were Rick Perry’s campaign manager, I think I’d be worried by the sound of that rumbling engine and the smell of diesel fumes:

“My problem with Perry is pretty straight forward. I’ve been muttering to myself since that third debate, ‘My God. This guy is undefeated?’ “
— Erick Erickson, “I Hate You”

Wasn’t it barely six weeks ago that Red Staters were publicly impugning the “intellect and integrity” of anyone — and last time I checked, Michelle Malkin was still someone — who criticized the smilin’ Texan?

And then there was that newspaper article I missed while I was in Iowa covering the Ames Straw Poll:

Perry’s announcement highlights
RedState’s growing influence
“RedState has emerged as the most influential blog in the conservative movement,” Republican political consultant Matt Mackowiak said. . . .

So if the Perry announcement was a testament to the “growing influence” of Red State, whose influence had indeed grown so overwhelming that they were willing to throw Malkin under their bus, what does it mean when Erick Erickson starts publicly dissing Perry?

Excuse me for thinking that the Texas governor’s strategist Dave Carney — who didn’t hesitate to throw Newt Gingrich under his own bus — probably isn’t sleeping too well lately, tossing and turning while the sound of a roaring diesel engine haunts his nightmares.

And the title of Erickson’s post reminds me of an old Ronnie Milsap song:


What She Said, and What I Said

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“While the Post tries to impose an old narrative on Perry and squeeze blood from a stone, the reality is that Perry has gone out of his way to pander to left-wing impulses on race.
“This is the guy that has disparaged his own base as racist in two separate GOP debates.
“Remember? . . .
“Remember? . . .
“It sucks to be falsely accused of racism.
“Maybe Rick Perry, now under siege by the ruthless race card-playing media, will remember that the next time he’s tempted to accuse conservatives who disagree with him of heartless bigotry.”
— Michelle Malkin, “Rick Perry and the Macaca Media,” Oct. 3

“Call me crazy. Attribute my forebodings of doom to irrational prejudice. Say what you will, and I don’t care, but I felt a need to put on the record my instinctive sense that there’s something fundamentally wrong about the Perry campaign. . . . Some kind of catastrophe will result, one way or another.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Young Minions of the Sith Lord of Texas,” Aug. 9

Look, just because I warned you something bad would happen — just because the Jedi master’s foresight has been vindicated by events — doesn’t mean that I’m happy to see the shocking fulfillment of my prophecy. And I am profoundly unhappy that the media have drawn Herman Cain into this ginned-up controversy:

Just when Rick Perry was coming up with a stronger answer on his immigration vulnerability, just when he was starting to show progress in New Hampshire, and just before he might have some good news to announce (his 3rd quarter fundraising report), comes another damaging story for the Texas governor. As the Washington Post reported over the weekend, a racial epithet had been displayed at a hunting camp that he and his family had leased. The story got additional legs when Herman Cain, the only African American in the 2012 GOP field, piled on. “I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place,” Cain told ABC yesterday. “It’s just basically a case of insensitivity.”

Republican primary voters don’t much care for lectures on “sensitivity” and, while it is certainly true that Mama would have washed my mouth out with soap if she had ever heard me say that word — the Texas word for “macaca,” as it were — it doesn’t benefit Cain’s campaign for him to bite the bait when the media dangle it in front of him. Political considerations aside, however, Ed Morrissey has a solid point:

I don’t find it at all surprising that Cain . . . would have an immediate and emotional reaction to this story.  It seems almost churlish to scold him for calling it “insensitive,” a rather mild criticism considering the nature of the term.

Every man is the judge of his own honor. If I say that you’ve insulted me, it only compounds the insult for you to tell me that no insult was intended, because it requires a special sort of contempt for a man to claim that you’ve insulted him by accident. If you have respect for someone, you should take care not to insult them, and so the properly respectful response when someone you respect takes umbrage is to apologize for the insult, rather than to defend yourself by protesting the accidental nature of the offense.

Whatever the history of the now-infamous “N–rhead” hunting ranch, however, I think we can also agree that Republicans feel insulted by accusations of racism, and the sooner this unfortunate incident becomes yesterday’s news, the better for all concerned.

Will this slow Herman Cain’s momentum? I certainly hope not. People are coming to know him as a candidate who speaks his mind, a trait that they appreciate even when he says things they wish he hadn’t said.

And I think we can all agree that racism in Alabama is a terrible thing.

Is #PerryFail the Hot New #tcot Hashtag?

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Rick Perry is already in a hole over his immigration policy, but he keeps on digging:

“Are we going to kick these children over to the curb and say you cannot have access to college? Because the fact of the matter is there’s no way they could pay the out-of-state tuition.”

Once more, Allahpundit wields the knife:

[A]fter you’ve tried to win over voters by calling them heartless, there’s really nowhere to go but up. . . .
Really? There are no jobs for illegals anywhere in Texas to earn tuition money? . . . This is the same sleight of hand he tried to use in the debate answer that got him in trouble, equating illegals’ opportunity to go to school in Texas with some sort of moral imperative among taxpayers to subsidize their education.

Go back just 10 days — before the Orlando debate, before the Florida straw poll — and remember how Perry was the unstoppable juggernaut, the bandwagon everyone was going to ride to glory.

And now it’s over. Completely and irretrievably over. How over is it? Mitt Romney is mocking Perry as a RINO sellout:

Dude. When your “conservative” candidate makes Mitt Romney look like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it’s over. So . . .

HERMAN CAIN for PRESIDENT
Because No Mexican Ever Said Anything Nice About Him

LATEST FOX NEWS POLL: Mitt Romney 23% Rick Perry 19% Herman Cain 17%

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Published barely 10 minutes ago.

UPDATE: The details:

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 925 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from September 25 to September 27. For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In other words, this is the first published poll based on a survey completely after Cain won Saturday’s straw poll.

UPDATE II: Let’s compare numbers with the previous Fox poll:

Romney ……… Sept. 9/25-27: 23% …. Aug. 29-31: 18%
Perry …………. Sept. 9/25-27: 19% …. Aug. 29-31: 26%
Cain …………… Sept. 9/25-27: 17% …. Aug. 29-31: 4%
Gingrich ……..  Sept. 9/25-27: 11% …. Aug. 29-31: 3%
Paul ……………. Sept. 9/25-27: 6% …. Aug. 29-31: 6%
Bachmann ……. Sept. 9/25-27: 3% …. Aug. 29-31: 8%
Santorum ……. Sept. 9/25-27: 3% …. Aug. 29-31: 4%

So three September debates in the span of 15 days — Sept. 7 in Simi Valley (NBC), Sept. 12 in Tampa (CNN) and Sept. 22 in Orlando (Fox) —  have completely re-arranged the GOP field.

UPDATE III: Why the big shift to Cain? Well, the Aug. 29-31 poll included Sarah Palin — she got 8% — while the latest poll didn’t.

Are Palinistas becoming Cainiacs?

UPDATE IV: Allahpundit wields the knife on Perry:

This is what happens when the big takeaways from your debate performance are (a) you hate your own base and (b) you sound brain damaged.

Dude. That was cold.

UPDATE V: Thanks for the link, Ace, but — is there something in the water these days? — Palin did not mean to put down Herman Cain with that “flavor of the week” phrase. She’s actually a huge fan of Cain. (And I’ll delete the hell out of any commenter who goes there, IYKWIMAITYD.)

Jeff Goldstein notes Palin’s latest policy commentary: She’s keeping her fire targeted at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Except that you can’t use that kind of metaphor any more. Because it’s “hate” or something.


SHOCKER: Herman Cain Now Leading Rick Perry 28%-18% in New Zogby Poll UPDATE: Dennis Miller Endorses Cain, Invites Me* to Hang Out in Hollywood

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Sarah Rumpf at Sunshine State Sarah brings the stunning news:

Rick Perry has tumbled by more than 20 percentage points over the past month among Republican presidential primary voters and is now second to Herman Cain, who leads the field with 28%.
Mitt Romney received little benefit from Perrys fall, garnering 17% of the vote for third place. . . .
These results are from an IBOPE Zogby interactive poll conducted Sept. 23-26. . . .

You can read the rest from Zogby. Their “interactive” methodology has been the subject of criticism in the past, but I expect we’ll see other polls confirming a similar trend in coming days.

UPDATE: Skepticism toward Zogby’s methodology was to be expected, and especially from liberals like Oliver Willis of Media Matters, but as I say, the trend is what I’ll be watching.

Sarah points out that Zogby includes survey information from Monday. An earlier poll by CNN, showing Perry still ahead, was taken Friday through Sunday. But (a) it was Perry’s defeat in the straw poll that will do the most damage, and (b) weekend survey data is untrustworthy. Only when I see an all-weekday polls fully reflecting the impact of the Orlando vote will I be confident about the trend.

That there will be a shift, I have no doubt. The whole argument for Perry was that he was the inevitable conservative alternative to Romney. Now both his inevitability and his conservatism are in doubt, so he is not likely to remain atop the polls much longer.

UPDATE II: Linked by The Lonely Conservative, another early Cain endorser, who welcomes a latecomer aboard the Cain Train:

[Dennis] Miller, who mentioned his support for the Cain campaign on his national radio show, will headline a fundraiser for Cain in Los Angeles and has donated to the campaign, a Cain spokeswoman confirmed. …
Miller has been supportive of Cain for months — his website directed readers to the Georgia businessman’s campaign site in July –- but had not formally endorsed him until today.

Fundraiser in Los Angeles? Oh, I gotta be there for that!

UPDATE II: Once you’re through hitting the tip jar to send me to Hollywood to hang out celebrities like my new best friend Dennis Miller, you need to watch this video where an ABC News reporter mocks Herman Cain as a “nobody”:

Good Morning America’s John Hendren on Sunday dismissed the victory of Herman Cain in the Florida straw poll, condescendingly asserting that the “big winner is nobody.”

Hey, punk: I’m a “nobody,” too. There’s nearly 300 million nobodies in this country, and all we need is 50% plus one of the voters, and Obama will become an ex-somebody.

UPDATE III: I realize that saying that my new BFF Dennis Miller has “invite[d] me to hang out in Hollywood,” I’m kind of stretching things. But when you hold a public political event, the press is necessarily invited. Plus, I’m tight with Team Herman, so in all seriousness, I expect exclusive access at this event. All I’ve got to do is rattle the tip jar with such with hitherto unequalled frenzy in order to get to Hollywood, and I’ll be in like Flynn.

Bonus: I’ve still got a personal cell-phone number for Courtney Stodden’s mom. Think about that. It’s also possible I could impose on Team Palin to arrange an interview with Bristol. An interview with Alyssa Milano is less likely, but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.