While I was in Iowa, a source told me that suspicions about Rick Perry’s weak debate performances being caused by back pain — which I had first reported Sept. 23 — were essentially correct. At one point, said the source, the governor had been prescribed oxycontin for the pain, but when his advisers realized that this was causing problems, his medication was changed. Of course, as anyone familiar with such things can tell you, changing medications can be a tricky business, sometimes involving bad side-effects, and it is possible that continuing medication-related problems explain some of the bad judgments and mental lapses Perry has exhibited in recent months.
I didn’t make a big deal of what my source told me in Iowa because it was difficult to explain the circumstances that lent credibility to his information without identifying either him or his source. And it wasn’t until I got to New Hampshire that, when I mentioned this to other journalists, several of them said to me, “Yeah, everybody knows that.”
But nobody’s reporting it, of course, because you can’t prove it, and it’s not as if the Perry’s campaign staff is going confirm that, yeah, the governor’s gobbling all kinds of pills every day, just to be able to endure the physical and emotional rigors of showing up at events and saying the stupid things he keeps saying:
“Listen, I love capitalism,” Mr. Perry said at a campaign stop at Duke’s Bar-b-q in Orangeburg, S.C., but “this corrupt and fraudulent activity in Washington, D.C. — between them and Wall Street — has got to stop.”
Mr. Perry stopped short of explicitly criticizing rival Mitt Romney and his business record at Bain Capital. But he highlighted workers at factories in South Carolina where Bain had cut jobs during Mr. Romney’s tenure. . . .
“My whole concern about Wall Street is the Republican Party should be about creating jobs, not creating instant wealth,” Mr. Perry said at a stop at a Lizard’s Thicket restaurant in Blythewood.
After calling Romney a “vulture capitalist” the other day, now Perry is unwilling to criticize Romney by name? Listen to Perry’s interview with Laura Ingraham:
Ingraham: You know I am going to raise the issue of Texans for Public Justice, their analysis of your campaign contributions since 2000 you have received more than $7 million from private equity firms and private investment firms. Are any of those “vulture” firms?
Perry: Listen, I didn’t paint with a broad brush and say that every private equity firm out there is…
Ingraham: Only Romney’s are vultures? None of your guys, only Romney’s?
Perry: Look, Romney is running for president.
Ingraham: Yeah, you are running for president too and you have benefitted from these firms.
Perry: Correct, and I don’t have a problem with that.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today, Joe Scarborough said Perry “sounds like a stoned NYU grad student in Zuccotti Park.”
It’s a zombie campaign at this point: Dead, but undead, the former frontrunner shuffling onward in a bizarre ritual simulacrum of campaigning for president.
UPDATE: Perry is sixth in the latest South Carolina poll by Insider Advantage, and also sixth in the latest Florida poll by Rasmussen. Maybe Erick Erickson can explain what purpose is served by Perry’s continued candidacy, other than spending the rest of the millions the Perry campaign collected in August and early September, before the wheels fell off that bandwagon.
UPDATE II: If Perry’s lost Rush Limbaugh . . .
After Perry described rival Mitt Romney’s work at Bain Capital as “vulture capitalism” (rather than venture capitalism), Limbaugh lashed out.
“That is indefensible!” he said on his EIB broadcast [Wednesday]. “It’s absurd…this is the language of leftists! This is the way Fidel Castro thinks, or says he thinks.”As you probably know, Limbaugh is no fan of Romney, whom he views as a flip-flopper and a closet moderate. He says he’s irked because Perry and others are going after Romney on “the one thing he’s actually pretty clearly conservative about.” He directed his ire at both Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“The attacks that they’ve mounted on Romney are indefensible,” Limbaugh said.
Stupid attacks like Perry’s are probably actually helping Romney.
