You nailed it.

that is why he is only polling at 5% in the new south carolina rasmussen poll.

i would say the voters are sending a clear message that rick santorum is the candidate that they support. and i suspect that after perry gets clobbered in south carolina he will withdraw from the primary. since redstate is a defacto campaign arm of the rick perry campaign, i am sure i will have ten pro perry posters immediately rebuttling my post. but the support for perry on this site is NOT indicitive of the support that rick perry has in real life. and the polls prove that.

Well said. This is really the crux of the entire piece:

Unfortunately, it appears we have decided that we can forgive bad policy records easier than we can forgive poor debate performances.

The debate debacle has been singularly responsible for screwing the pooch for the GOP in 2012. (As Mike D would say, “more later” on this…)

I glad someone finally said this! I had so much hope in the Tea Party. Now, it just seems like the driver of their cause was just being mad at Obama and not about conservative principles. It saddeneds me that they are pushing Santorum, a man who was kicked out of Congress during the Republican purge of 2006 (or so I’ve been told. I didn’t pay attention to politics until 2008) due to overspending. If he is the nominee, expect that fight all over again. Conservatives are all over the place. I really wish they would FOCUS! Find a leader pronto, or the Tea Party will be over by the summer.

in my view we have 2 choises

1- hope that huntsman gets a boost in new hampshire and get on his train

2- forgive gingrich for his supportting the mandate and get with him becuase he is the person who can change things in washington as he did already once

otherwise we have romney who is a chicken and has no balls to change anything

Iowa was the only state that has cast a vote, I refuse to let 120,000 people tell me which candidate I have to support. NH is probably going to Romney. Can Romney win SC?
I hope Rick Perry can pull off a win. Iowa was the first election he’s ever lost. Let’s try to focus on Perry’s postive record and forget about his early debate performances. If you can, listen to Rush Limbaugh’s show on Friday. He said his friends are embarassed by all the conservatives, from Perry to Bachmann, with reasons why they think none of them can win.
I looked up all the info available on Rick Perry before he announced, I understand why he made Guardasil an EO, etc.
It was not us, it was the media that slammed Perry, starting with Karl Rove and his attack on Perry for what he said about Bernanke.
Rove hates Perry, it goes way back.
Remember that Rick Perry said this country was living under a big black cloud, he meant the debt, the media turned it into a racist statement about Obama.
Come on, let’s not give up yet!

Great post Aaron.

I just about gave up on this place and the idea of ever electing a true conservative. I have had it, I have had it with people who claim they want to overall Washington and what serious change BUT in the same breath the are ready to turn on the only conservative in the race and high tail it to any one of the pseudo conservatives.

You either want a true conservative that can change Washington or you don’t. Which is it?

I will never walk away from Perry because to do so is walking out on my own principles and walking out on this country.

does little to advance the cause. So “your” candidate imploded. No one owns the conservative movement, not the Tea Party, not Gov. Perry, and certainly not Redstate. If the “conservative” candidate, whomever that is in your view, cannot win the Republican nomination, that is their failure, not ours. Everyone should keep their eye on the ball which is to remove President Obama from office. If you are either unwilling to, or in such a depressed state that you cannot wholeheartedly support whomever emerges as the nominee, then take you ball and go home. Those of us who have not given up will soldier on and do what is necessary to ensure success come November. Save your over-the-type hyperbole (“late–term abortion? Really?) and either get on the bus or get off.

Politics shows no mercy.
You’re speaking to the choir here Aaron.

Perry’s campaign is what it is.
Lethargic.
Perry had all the same opportunities as anyone else.
On top of that he had buckets of cash.
We tried to politely suggest that his bad campaign performances were a little more serious than some would admit and those criticisms were dismissed.
Some of us tried to tell some here that yes…television does matter but…..

We were being shallow.
We were being superficial.
We were jumping on band wagons…bluh bluh blah.

Aaron I think you are a purist.
Gov. Perry is a hell of a guy.
He has a damn good record.
He has more executive experience than the whole field combined and that includes Obama.
He would make a hell of a president and I would love to see it.
And all that should be enough.

But he sucks on TV.

As sad as that is it outweighs all the rest even though it doesn’t make sense or is fair or intelligent.

What can I tell you my friend….?
We hear ya’ pal.
Many times the best guy is often passed over for no good reason.
That’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
To be honest I think we give the voters more credit than they deserve.
They will bleepin’ vote for anybody sometimes and the examples would be many.

South Carolina is the Alamo.
He has to get on the scoreboard or it’s over.

Good luck to you and to the Governor.

Two debates back to back this weekend. Rick Perry did an excellent job in both debates. I am sure the media for the most part will shun Perry’s excellent debate performances this weekend.

The good news, Perry can and will retake the lead again. Here is why:

Huntsman is gone after NH, surely after SC.

There is an article about Romney going after Santorum real hard and Paul is also going to go after Santorum hard. Santorum will go down soon. In addition there is going to be a lot of pressure, expectations on Santorum to come in 2nd in NH – it isn’t going to happen so his bubble will get burst even more.

I hate to say but Newt didn’t do himself any good this weekend, in fact he really hurt himself. Newt, who is known for crying about Romney’s attack ads which the crying doesn’t sit well with voters right now – goes on this tangent in the debate about these attacks ads.

So guess what, in the debate this morning Newt tries to go after Romney for those attacks ads but it backfires – Newt actually got Romney to spell out what the ads said and how they weren’t false and Newt didn’t and couldn’t dispute the content of the ads (sitting on the couch with Pelosi, the ethic fine, etc). To me this was a great moment for Romney as it justified Romney’s attacks ads.

On top of which Newt keeps bringing up the NY Times article (great source for a conservative to use). This entire up and back with Newt and Romney was funny, it backfired on Newt whether or not his supporters want to admit it – it didn’t help Newt at all.

This now brings the opening for Perry to come in and start cleaning it up and taking charge of the primary. For those who want a serious conservative now is the time to start supporting one and stop either sitting on the fence or waiting for the next fashion/fad to come into the flavor of the month.

Very well said- A late term abortion of the conservatives. I will not give up on Perry, and I believe he has a great shot at being in the top three, at least, in SC.

I just saw an interesting poll put up at Ace’s today. He asks that now that some will have to give up on their first place candidate, who would they choose as their second place candidate? Perry won that poll by a large margin. I’ve seen that same poll result over the past few months of the campaign season, Perry always seemed to be the second choice. Well, now as the front runners keep rising and falling, Perry is still the second choice, and will likely be the last man standing to take on the Romney guy.

Another thing I keep seeing is about Perry’s debate performances. He had a hard time of the debates in the first few. Then as he got his sea legs, and his back started healing, I saw over and over, people saying that that was his best debate. Then after the next debate, they said that that was his best debate. Perry has now far surpassed his mediocre/bad debate performances with a larger number of good debates. I saw an article today saying that if Perry’s debate performance from this morning had happened a few months ago, he would clearly be the current frontrunner.

As you said Aaron, some are now willing to forgive big government conservatism, or support of non-conservative policies, more of a chance than some circus like debate’s held mostly by the leftists to make our candidates all look dumb, and to keep them from doing what campaigns should be doing, getting in with the voters, and talking to them in small townhalls, and on one on one conversations.

It ain’t over by a long shot. Romney does not have it in the bag, as the creeps telling you that he does are intensifying their propaganda because he still isn’t acceptable to the majority. He got more than a bloody nose this morning. Soon he will have black eyes, rehtorically speaking of course.

and for your candidate. And no need to apologize to anyone for doing so.

There are people like Rick Perry who look at their role as a public servant, and the DC career politicians are doing them in. Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum are conservative career politicians instead of public servants. The same as Mitt Romney and Ron Paul who are full of pious baloney career politicians.

Jim DeMint, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman are examples of public servants. The beltway establishment will always work against these people who do not play their game.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

illegal immigration. This can’t necessarily be laid entirely at the door of pundits and neither can the entirety of the responsibility be projected onto voters. And I hope that these comments will be taken in the context of constructive criticism, because that’s how they are meant.

When the federal government fails to enforce the law, it leaves each and every state in a bit of a quandary in defining what kind of action they should or should not take pertaining to the law.

The state of TX made it’s decision in how it wanted to respond to the situation with illegal immigrants, and the citizens and state officials of other states have done the same. But there are other states (particularly Conservative Southern states) that have decided to adhere more closely to the rule of law as it was written than TX has.

From the viewpoint of citizens within those states, the decision made in TX is SOFTER on immigration than they have chosen to be. That’s the contrast and comparison that they see, Aaron. Add that rather unfortunate “heartless” comment into the mix and, well…it just complicated matters more than they needed to be.

If I was a member of Perry’s team, I would be evaluating this one long and hard, gathering together all the data I could find about the approval ratings for decisions that have made in states that did adhere more closely to the rule of law, and how Perry is polling within those states at the present time, to determine if there was any way possible at all that this could be a factor that is pulling down his campaign.

If the data supports an analysis along these lines, then Perry could very easily reiterate and reinforce his support for states’ rights, even on the issue of illegal immigration. Over and over again, if need be. It may not completely and totally reverse any damage that may have been done, but it could go a long way to providing the people within those states with a degree of reassurance that they may be looking for right now.

Since you seem to have a memory lapse, allow me to refresh you on some “bad Perry policies.” How does a so-called small government guy support in-state tuition for ILLEGALS, or government mandated vaccinations via a disputed vaccine, or support government regulation based on fake global warming science, etc. Perry also claims to be an ardent 10th Amendment proponent, but he quickly rolled over for the Feds rather than fighting for Texans’ right to not be illegally searched or sexually assaulted by TSA agents.

Perry has his chance right now to convince conservatives otherwise, but so far I am not the only one to be suspicious of his view on goverment’s role.

If Texans are happy with Governor Perry, then that’s great. I would vote for Perry if he is the nominee, but I am not yet sold on working for him in the primary season. That could change if the Establishment keeps trying to foist Romney on us.

Those of you whining about the Tea Party never really understood the movement in the first place.

it must have really gone bad. The Perry campaign from start to finish is the worst campaign for President of all time. It is not just his poor debating skills, it is everything. When Cain got butchered(even before the women issue) and Newt got scalped everyone on this board said that was just vetting and that was the job of the primaries. Well sorry Perry folk. We vetted Perry. He is soft of immigration, big on big government solutions and he is basically just another former democrat who stuck his finger in the air and changed parties to ride the wave. The beginning of this post is correct. No real conservative got in the race and we wanted one. It is obvious now however, that Perry was just a stalking horse put in by the Rinos to keep any real conservatives out. He served his purpose and you got bamboozled. Please wake up and smell the coffee or at least pretend you do.

I think the party has two problems. One, Eric has pointed out, is that Bush left no heir apparent for the party to rally behind, i.e. a vice president.

Second. Texas is so unrepresentative of America. What works politically there does not work everywhere. I live in blue(ish) state Wisconsin and so many of my Republican friends just can’t stand Perry’s cowboy bravado. That kind of talk just doesn’t play well outside of the south. Romney, for all his faults, talks like the Republican down the street. People can relate to the way he talks. Perry reminds too many of Bush. Sorry. I’m sure he is great down there, but he doesn’t play well in these parts.

I had read that Santorum had not made the ballot in DC (19), TN (58), VA (49) and possibly Ohio (66) and Mississippi (40). If this is correct, it would seem thay he doesn’t yet have the organization in place to compete with Romney. I read that he was going to join with Perry’s lawsuit to get on the Virginia ballot, but the states he has already missed the ballot are in excess of 225 delegates right there.
Can you just spot Romney 225+ delegates and hope to win?

When the Gardasil thing started I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing.

I don’t think the Tea Party is dead, either. I think everyone who truly wants to see smaller government is despondent over the idea of having Mitt Romney becoming the prohibitve favorite candidate. But I don’t see the Tea Party withering away and dying any time soon. Just in the past few days, if you can look past the flailing and teeth-gnashing, there have been a lot of people expressing real desire to keep the movement going and try different tactics also.

I don’t think we need instant runoff voting, but I do think we need more pressure exerted by Conservatives who get involved locally. And I think a majority in both houses of Congress would make a real difference. You have to have real, bicameral legislative horespower to stand up to an activist President like the one we’ve got occupying the Oval Office. You have to have the full power of both houses of Congress, and that’s what we have to do, no matter who our nominee turns out to be.

I’ll have more on this later, but thanks for the post…

For those people who complain about the Texas drawl, or the Texas swagger; how about the New Jersey accent or the pompous nature of all Bostonians? Get over yourselves. You just wish your state was in as good shape as the state of Texas is. While your brethern are decrying our cowboy ways, we are mostly silent on your pomposity. Southerners as a whole are tired of being designated as stupid by those who inhabit the coasts. Also, George H.W. Bush may have lived in Texas, but he was a Northerner through and through. He retired each summer to his vacation home in Kennebunkport and sent his sons to Yale. Bush Jr. tried a little harder to be a Texan, but he too had the Yale education and the noblesse oblige of the RINO elitists. Obama has taken our republic to the brink and you are hung up on accents? Why not start looking at Governor Perrys actual record on jobs and the economy and think about saving the country, before it’s too late.

You have $ available to donate to defeat Barack Obama, but you’re going to buy yourself an Ipad instead of contributing to the eventual nominee?

I, for one, will give whatever I can. I expect my household will be able to come up with $500 for Mitt’s campaign. And gladly so.

Well, at least you’ll be able to pull up YouTube clips of Marco Rubio plugging for Romney (as VP candidate) in HD on your Ipad during the general. By then, I predict, you will have lost your political stupidity and come around to reality.

…tends toward bureaucratism. Technocracies are skilled at co-opting ideologies to suit their own end: continued growth.

The only way for technocracies to end is for them to grow large enough to cause their own collapse.

It’s a mistake for any candidate or campaign team to assume the Tea Party movement was available for the taking. The Tea Party movement began as a bulwark against bloated government spending and really got going against ObamaCare (aka PPACA). I was never meant to be “for” a particular candidate. That is why their support is fractured.

If grassroot conservatives assumed the Tea Party movement would carry the water for them, they’re sadly mistaken and in fact making the same lazy mistake post-Reagan and post-Contract With America.

It’s time to stand up and make South Carolina a firewall against Romney. Otherwise, consider this game over.

Such clarity is what we are missing in a lot of coverage of the campaign so far.

Simply put we have a fractured electorate — republicans, tea partiers, Libertarians, etc. The Tea Party is not mature enough to field a national candidate. I think a lot of conservatives figured the TP would do the work of finding the perfect candidate for us. But that was never going to happen, since the TP is deliberately diffuse, without a leader, etc.

as I suggested a while ago, the real effort has to be to deny Romney an early victory. Santorum achieved that in Iowa, and Huntsman is on track to dent Romney in NH. In SC, Perry, Santorum or Gingrich could stall Romney. Once we get past the early contests, we will be rid of Ron Paul (his campaign has said they will only contest caucuses, not primaries, after SC) and we can proceed to test the strengths of our candidates.

The pre-primary season was largely a waste of time an effort (I think I was one of the earliest to point out the pernicious effects on our candidates of the debates) but we are now in the period where actual votes are cast.

In NH, there is a good possibility that Huntsman can run a strong second against Romney and (along with Paul) deny him anything like a big win (as would be expected from a candidate who won statewide office in Massachusetts). In SC, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum should be able to beat romney. I know he’s ahead now, but that’s name recognition, organization, endorsements, etc.

Hopefully, we will end up with a four way contest — Romney, Perry, Huntsman and Gingrich — going into Florida and the later primaries. That’s a strong field.

The alternatives are to provide no medical service to uninsured people (let them die on the sidewalk next to the hospital?), make insurance too expensive to buy for anyone with a preexisting condition because healthy people don’t buy it, or have a British/Canadian style government system (UGHH!!). An individual mandate at the state level seem like the least unpalatable solution to me. Does someone else have a better idea that actually works?

A the end of your piece, Aaron, you put the word “we” with the word “voters”. But for most of the other 20 times you use the word, you seem to be referring to the pundits, consultants, pollsters, etc. who would be the ones controlling the day-to-day running of who’s up and who’s down and why.

We have not had one primary vote yet. Not one voter’s voice has been officially heard yet. Let’s not put the cart before the horse and say that “we”, the voters, will get the candidate that we deserve. Every candidate has had his or her chance in the sun. If, for whatever reason, candidates screw up, or can’t stand the heat in the kitchen, since politics ain’t beanbag, then the voters will make an appropriate, informed decision.

If they choose Romney as the nominee, which now appears likely, I would hope that we respect the choice that our party faithful made, having properly vetted all of the candidates. That respect is the least that we, the voters, deserve.

“Unfortunately, it appears we have decided that we can forgive bad policy records easier than we can forgive poor debate performances.”

and the clueless, conventional liberal Establishment media had their narrative. Rick Perry is a real deal outsider and they know it.

Rick Perry’s Texas Works and that model can make America work again.

Rick Perry, and we few, stand against those getting rich from government and a compliant media which shares its elitist values in favor of the American Model, the Constitutional Limited Government Model and the dignity of individual life; the belief that every life is a life worth living.

Rick Perry needs to go positive on Rick Perry and Texas.

Tebow threw the 80 yard overtime pass and Rick Perry, with our support, can, too.

South Carolina is where we started and that is where we need to be.

and so will Perry. Perry said in a debate that he wanted to be the Tim Tebow of this election. I think Tebow’s win today is a reminder of what a man who puts his faith in God can accomplish. Perry is a man who puts his faith in God.

gave the victory to Tebow and the Broncos.

Rick Perry will have his Tebow moment also.

How this would be done, I haven’t a clue. But it’s these folks who have foisted Juan McCain on us, are pushing the Romneycare Kid and support all the other liberals running as Republicans.
I live in upstate New York, and as well as my vote for the presidency being wiped out by NYC, my vote in the Republican Primary will be meaningless because the RINO NC promulgates an schedule for the primaries that starts in places that don’t insist on requiring that the voters in the primaries be members of the party where they vote.

I don’t want to be “Conservative.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT0SX2jpgFQ&feature=youtu.be

Every true conservative was beaten down or decided they didn’t need the hassle from a Republican Party that has come to hate conservatives. The GOP has been infiltrated with Progressives and the only differences now is what side of the isle do they want to sit on in Congress. Reagan was our lst true conservative and the GOP and GHW Bush hated him. As soon as Bush became president he started the dismantling of the Reagan era initiatives. It started with “A 1000 points of light” and went down hill from there. Then Bush lost to Clinton and the GOP chose Bod Dole to run against him. Dole a RINO didn’t have a chance. Then the GOP chose GW Bush another RINO and somehow he won in 2000. But he introduced Karl Rove and Micheal Steele who come rightout and told conservatives to get lost. Now we come to 2009 and the Obamacare fiasco. The Tea Party of mostly conservatives was able to pull off the turnover of hte House to the Republicans again. Imeediatley the House chose the very worse RINO as Speaker of the House and started the attacks on the Tea Party and along with the Democrats were able to beat them down. The GOP doesn’t seem to care that they re going to lose the election because of the poor choices we have for a candidate with Romney being the absolute worse choice of a conservative. Romney hs been chosen by the GOP to be their poster boy for the 2012 elections and they know that no matter what their Progressive agenda will be pushed ahead no matter who wins the election. The GOP just wants their man to be the one that pushes the Progressives ahead and their choice is Romney. Don’t forget now that the GOP did not want Reagan in 1980 but somehow the people chose him anyway. We need a last minute conservative to enter the race that the GOP and the Democrats won’t hve time to beat down and take the GOP nomination. The problem is that Reagan is dead. Even dead he could do a better job than any of these candidates running today including Obama.

n/t