Texas Gov. Rick Perry is reportedly making a “last-ditch effort”
to salvage his floundering presidential campaign with ads aimed at
social conservative voters in Iowa. Perry has spent a million
dollars on TV ads in Iowa, which holds its first-in-the-nation
precinct caucuses on Jan. 3, and the two most recent ads have
highlighted the Texan’s religious faith and social issues.
Wednesday, Perry began airing an Iowa ad in which he promises to
“end Obama’s war on religion” and “fight against liberal attacks on
our religious heritage.” That ad sparked controversy because Perry
mentions the recent repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy,
saying: “You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know
there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly
in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or
pray in school.” Yet Perry’s spokesman blunted the potential impact
of that ad by
disclaiming any intention by the candidate to reinstate the
policy prohibiting open homosexuality in the armed
services.
Michael O’Brien of NBC News described the Perry ads as “part of
an emergent strategy … a last-ditch effort to revive his
campaign,” and quoted Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying “that’s
probably the only path he has left, to be honest.” Sanders is the
daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa
caucuses during his 2008 Republican presidential campaign.
Perry began his campaign with a high-profile “diss” of the
Hawkeye State, choosing to announce his candidacy in South Carolina
on the same day as the Iowa GOP straw poll in Ames. Republican
sources in Iowa at that time told me that the Perry campaign had
approached state GOP officials about participating in the Aug. 13
straw poll but evidently decided against it. Perry quickly vaulted
to the front of the Republican pack - peaking at 31.8 percent in
the
Real Clear Politics national poll average on Sept. 12 - only to
see his support collapse after a series of disastrous performances
in televised debates. The Texan is currently in fifth place in the
RCP average, with 7 percent, and the
most recent Des Moines Register poll showed Perry with
6 percent among Iowa GOP voters, tied with former Pennsylvania Sen.
Rick Santorum, whose low-budget campaign has spent only a fraction
of the millions spent by the Perry campaign.
Santorum, the only GOP candidate who has campaigned in all of
Iowa’s 99 counties this year, could present a surprisingly
formidable obstacle to Perry’s attempt to woo social conservative
voters in the Hawkeye State. Santorum was endorsed last week by Sioux City Pastor
Cary Gordon, an influential leader of evangelical Christians in
the state. Santorum released
newspaper ads in Iowa this week declaring “no surrender” on
social issues. The decisions of five Republican candidates,
including Perry, to boycott a Dec. 27 debate hosted by Donald Trump
and NewsMax has resulted in a coup for Santorum, who is now set for
a one-on-one
showdown with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the current
Republican front-runner. Also, Santorum has picked up the
endorsement of Iowa Secretary of State Mike Schultz, the
Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs reported
yesterday.
Meanwhile, as NBC’s O’Brien reported, the board of the Family
Leader, a major Iowa social conservative organization, has been
unable to reach a consensus over which candidate to back in the
caucuses and may end up making no endorsement this year. The
chairman of the Family Leader, Bob Vander Plaats, told NBC that
while Perry had emphasized economic issues “when he was the
front-runner … Now he’s getting back to square one, which is:
Who is Rick Perry?”
