Rick Perrry in Iowa. Reuters.
Rick Perry has become the first major candidate to drop out of the 2016 presidential race. Reuters. Perry had never polled well during his campaign and was always near the bottom of the polls. His campaign was doing so poorly that he had been unable to pay several staffers. This is the second time Perry has run for President. In 2012 his campaign was torpedoed by a major gaff when he was unable to remember the third government department that he was going to cut. In this race he was unable to score high enough in the polls to reach the main debate stage during the first Republican Debate. Perry tried to promote himself as a strong candidate in favor of canceling the Iran deal and working with black people, but it never panned out.
My Comment:
About time someone dropped out of the Republican field. In my opinion there are quite a few people that should follow him. Lindsay Grahm, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Rick Santroum, and George Pataki should go away as well since none of them have a realistic chance of getting the nomination. As for the rest of the field, there are a few people that are polling pretty terribly but should stay in for now. Rand Paul probably doesn't have a chance to win, but he's about the only major libertarian candidate in the field, and he can move the Overton Window while he is running. Carly Fiorina doesn't have much of a chance either, but at least with her running they can say there is a woman on the Republican side.
As for Perry himself, I don't know why he even bothered to run. His last campaign was an utter disaster. Sure he had a strong record as a governor, but he always came across as out of touch and unprepared. The article mentioned his poor performance in one of the debates when he couldn't name one of the departments he wanted to cut. That is, to be blunt, a massive error. Though it was probably just a slip of his mind, it still destroyed his campaign. But the article forgot to mention this infamous campaign add from 2012 that turned off anyone who wasn't a hardcore social conservative.
That add alone was enough to torpedo his chances. He was trying to appeal to evangelical Christians but he turned everyone else off and I don't think it actually helped him with evangelicals all that much. That's a strategy, by the way, that I think Republicans should avoid. Trying to appeal to religion may help get you the nomination, but it won't win you the presidency. And it wastes effort and time for the other factions of the Republican Party. Libertarians, fiscal conservatives and defense hawks don't care too much about the religious values of a candidate and since Republicans are the "Christian" party anyways you don't really need to talk about how religious you are because it is just assumed anyways. They want to hear about the issues, not about how pious the candidate is. And the general public is less receptive to a strong religious candidate as well, (which is why Hucakbee has never been a strong candidate since that's about all he talks about).
With Perry out of the race his supporters, all 1% of them, will support someone else. My guess is that they will go to one of the more religious candidates, like Hucakbee or Carson. Still, Perry had so few supporters that I doubt it will matter much in the long term. We need quite a few more people to drop out before we can have any idea who the candidate is going to be.
Right now the protest candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, are winning at the polls. Neither of them are establishment Republicans and they are blowing all the other candidates out of the water. As people start to drop out though we will find out if they are serious candidates or not. Right now the establishment vote is split between about a dozen candidates while the protest voters only have two. Once the riff raff drops out, it's very possible that they will rally to an establishment candidate like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.
That's the theory. I'm not so sure. Right now Trump is wiping the floor with everyone and every time he opens his mouth he is telling people that he is a strong candidate that won't back down to leftist attacks. He isn't politically correct and he is talking about an issue, illegal immigration, that everyone else ignored. Carson also seems to have the evangelicals locked up, leaving little room for other social conservatives. My guess is that as the other candidates drop out most support will go to Trump, Carson and one establishment candidate. The establishment candidate will probably get more support from the party, but in the end, I don't see any of them taking away momentum from Trump.
Honestly, I think Trump is going to be the candidate. He has just been very strong and has withstood every attack against him. He also has broad appeal and is a very good attack dog as well. In order for him to lose he would have to have some kind of major gaffe and I just don't see that happening. Technically he has had dozens of gaffes, but they just don't seem to affect him. And I think he probably has a better chance at winning against the Democratic candidate.
Speaking of the Democrats, I have no idea who is going to win that race. Hillary Clinton's campaign seems to be tanking yet again, but at this point the only other viable candidate is Bernie Sanders and he is a literal socialist. He won't get widespread support and I consider him un-electable after he was embarrassed by black lives matters. Joe Biden is the only other viable candidate and he might not even run. If that's the best the Democrats can put up, then the Republicans should just win no matter who the candidate is. That was probably going to happen anyways since we seem to be in a pattern of alternating 8 year terms for Republicans and Democrats.
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