DAILY BEAST: …There are many possible explanations for how and why Perry dug himself into a hole. Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist and former Hutchison aide who supports Perry, says the Texas governor and his campaign were consumed by fundraising in the seven weeks from his announcement to the Sept. 30 deadline for third-quarter donations. “You can’t do anything else without money. That was the first, most immediate hurdle,” Mackowiak says. He predicts that Perry will “turn on the afterburners” now that the initial pressure is off…
Paul Burka, a Texas Monthly writer who has long covered Perry, says that so far “he’s certainly not the guy that we’ve seen in Texas. He doesn’t have the same fire or the same confidence that he had in Texas.” Burka wonders if a slow recovery from July 1 back surgery has thrown Perry off his game, and, like Mackowiak, he predicts the governor will bounce back to form. “When he gets in a race, he’s a killer. He just destroyed Kay Bailey Hutchison. They will sooner, if not later, just launch all these attacks on Romney.”..
Romney campaign emails—sometimes three a day—arrive with headlines like “Rick Perry: Reckless, Wrong on Social Security,” “Perry’s Problem With the Truth,” and “Perry’s Pinocchio Problem,” always topped with four photos of Perry through the years. The years 1984 to 2011, to be exact, Perry’s time in office, with the caption “CAREER POLITICIAN” in red block letters. A new video notes that Perry’s tuition position is shared by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and former Mexican president Vicente Fox… (more)
