Perry could survive depite these issues. His inability to handle the issues and then turn to name calling is what is killing it. He is letting two minor issues....a ten year old popular bill on education and the guarasil issue...dominate these debates and cause severe damage. The tx dream act had near universal support among all electedofficals because it is constructed in a whole different way than the current liberal bills of a similar name. He has bumbled and fumbles the issue to the point of
Iterally insluting those who disagree. We need a skilled campaigner to take on the media and Obama, and he has fallen very, very short on that requirement. He can turn it around, but even a lot of people like me that WANTED to get behind Perry are pretty skeptical that he can perform effectively under fire.
It is true that the nation has elected incoherent Texans to the White House, but Perry alone has come up with THE dumbest non-sequiturs. This one at the FLA venue takes the cake: Perry’s debate answer WRT what he’d do if the White House phone rang at 3 AM......informing him that the Taliban had gotten control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
“Well, obviously, before you ever get to that point, you have to build a relationship in that region. And that’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Just yesterday we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country — so to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.” Perry went on to tell a story about how the Obama administration wouldn’t sell upgraded F-16 fighters to India. which n-e-v-e-r happened.
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Perry's candidacy-ending response was when he thumbed his nose at his country and its citizenry, saying those who disagreed with him on in-state tuition are "heartless." The inference was that only Perry was Truly Worthy (b/c only he had sucked up to Mexico).
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Perry was anticipating the triumphal moment when he would be able to nail Romney for being a flip-flopper---and had prepared for it. This was Perry's response: “I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of — against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it — was before — he was before the social programs from the standpoint of — he was for standing up for Roe versus Wade before he was against first — Roe versus Wade? Him — he was for Race to the Top. He’s for Obamacare and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and — and — and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.”
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All in all, Perry has a complete lack of presidential gravitas — he has an odd way of responding to a debater, then cocking his head in an almost mechanical way, posing with a self-satisfied grin (as if he had just paged through his vast holdings he's accumulated in Texas politics).