Again, I go back to 2007, and the supposed Hillary vs. Guilliani race everyone promised us.
Perry can enter the race late because he has more stature than anyone else running. (A three term governor of the second largest state vs. a few congressmen, one term governors and cranks.)
If Perry jumps in, he’ll quickly co-opt all the far right energy currently circulating around Bachmann and Palin.
Remember, right now, the supposed “Front-runner”, Mitt Romney really only has the support of about 20-30% of the GOP base. There’s a lot of room to get in for someone with stature.
Party leaders, key supporters and major donors are thinking about it right now, I’ll bet you. The play may not start for six months, but it’s being decided right now what actors are going to get up on the stage.
Sorry if this doesn’t conform to your vision of the thread as a compilation of the three things you like to talk about.
The fact that no one has pulled this feat off in recent memory might lead one to believe that even a candidate with “more stature” needs time to build an organization and raise enough money.
But these movers and shakers are the ones pushing Perry.
Perry I think is credible now because Mitch Daniel and Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee, all of whom were expected to get in, aren’t. (And probably neither is Sarah Palin).
And Mitt Romney is pretty much unacceptable to much of the base. So there is a big gap he could fill.
At this point in 2007, John McCain was broke, most of his staff had quit and the pundits were writing him off as dead. It wasn’t until he rebooted his staff he became credible.
Oh, yeah, and he had that stature thing going for him of being a senior senator, a war hero and the guy who almost beat Bush in 2000.
Perry would also have the advantage is that all the major factions of the GOP like the guy- The religious right, the TEA Party, the establishment, the Neo-Cons and Wall street. He’s someone people could reach concensus on pretty quickly.
Oh, yeah, and he’s got a bullet-proof argument against Obama. His state is one of the few that has actually ADDED jobs in the last few years.
Guy, you can’t play the race card with me… I don’t accept it. (Especially since you don’t know what my racial background is, and it might surprise you.)
Aaaah, but is that the whole picture or just part of the picture.
And just to screw with people, since Homo Sapiens and other pre-humans evolved in Africa and then spread out across the world, doesn’t that make us all African Americans?
Because the OP gets to set the terms of the question.
Stop dragging anti-Muslim digs into threads where they don’t belong. The topic is presidential primary cycles of the last two decades.
We are about discussion. These discussions take place in separate threads where people stay on topic. You pointedly refuse to do so.
You are the person who is trying to derail the conversation with an aside, then denying it when you are called on it. As I said above, we try to stay on-topic in our conversations, but do allow people to correct egregious misstatements of fact.
We also have a rule against insulting other posters.
And once again, you try to get back into that sidetrack.
I am not issuing a warning yet – but consider this a shot across your bow. Stay on topic; stop with irrelevant jabs against religions, ideologies, and politicians you dislike; stop insulting other posters.
I encourage you to start paying more attention to our rules now.
But were they, or weren’t they, doing other activities indicative of running - for instance, the exploratory committee, the public appearances in Iowa or New Hampshire, etc.? The date that they declare is really only relevant per the OP if they haven’t been actively running prior to their declaration of candidacy.
I guess the real question is “when why and how did all this ‘exploratory committee’ crap get started? In the old days, a potential candidate might talk it over with his family or send up a trial balloon, now it’s this big process hullabaloo! God, I miss the Cold War.”
I found a New York Times Article from August, 1991, that says Clinton “is nowe testing the waters for a campaign” and “could announce the formation of an exploratory committee soon”
and he looks like he did that at the end of August. Before that, there was a lot of “will he or won’t he” speculation by the Times. So, I think it’s probably safe to say that while he was thinking about it, and letting people talk him up (and, it looks like he made a speech attacking Dan Quayle), he wasn’t actively running, and, in fact, was promising he’d finish his term as governor.
But then, in that race, most of the Democrats got in late, in part because Bush looked really strong…certainly later than the Republicans are this year. When everyone gets in late, getting in late doesn’t hurt you as much.
