NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — “As a Texan, I’ve never shied away
from a fight,” Rick Perry said in explaining his decision to drop
out of the 2012 campaign as a “strategic retreat.”
“This campaign has never been about the candidate,” said the
Texas governor, who soared to the top of the polls after announcing
his Republican presidential candidacy in August, but saw his
support evaporate after a series of disastrous debate performances
in September. “I’ve always believed the mission is greater than the
man.”
Perry endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whom he
called a “visionary” and referred to as “a conservative leader who
will bring about real change.” Perhaps mindful of the latest news
about Gingrich — his ex-wife’s decision to
give a tell-all interview to ABC News — Perry said, “Newt is
not perfect, but who among us is?”
During his press conference at the Hyatt Place hotel here,
Perry kissed his wife Anita, saying she had been “an incredible
patriot during this process.” He called his failed presidential
campaign a “privilege to learn and grow.”
Perry’s late entry to the GOP presidential field was attended by
much media fanfare suggesting that he was certain to win the
Republican nomination by becoming the conservative alternative to
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Yet his campaign signaled
overconfidence by its decision to skip the Iowa GOP Straw Poll in
Ames — a traditional Republican campaign ritual — and
instead announce his candidacy in South Carolina at a
conference sponsored by the popular Red State blog. That was the
first of many blunders by Perry and his campaign team. His poor
debate performances were the most public of these embarrassments,
but there were many other mistakes, as
I explained last week:
His campaign reportedly spent $250,000 in their effort to win a
Sept. 24 Florida GOP straw poll, only to be embarrassed by a
lopsided loss to Cain.
Attempting to revive his candidacy, the Perry campaign spent
millions of dollars to air TV and radio ads in Iowa … and
achieved nothing but a fifth-place finish.
Perry reportedly was ready to quit after that humiliating loss,
but instead decided to continue. Rather than campaigning in New
Hampshire, Perry came directly to South Carolina only to experience
further catastrophes: He denounced Romney as a “vulture
capitalist,” which caused one of Perry’s major donors to
shift his support to Romney and also caused Rush Limbaugh to
compare Perry to Fidel Castro.
Exactly how valuable Perry’s endorsement will be to Gingrich is
hard to estimate. Perry’s support in South Carolina had dwindled to
single digits (4
percent in the latest Marist poll) and his decision to quit the
race two days before Saturday’s primary may have been motivated by
a desire to avoid being seen as a “spoiler.”
Yet if Romney ultimately wins the Republican nomination, it can
be argued that Perry’s entire campaign — doomstruck from start to
finish — accomplished nothing but to confuse conservatives,
distracting them from viable conservative opponents to
the moderate from Massachusetts.
This is exactly what I predicted in August: “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.”
