Rick Perry Announces Presidential Bid

[adaher]

Not interested at all. He’s GWB with less intelligence and curiosity.

That being said, don’t count him out. K street loves this guy. If he doesn’t stumble again he’ll have no problem raising money.

[bup]

@Crotalus

What do these guys (the snowball’s chance guys, i.e. most of them) gain from doing this? I guess Huckabee got a talk show gig out of it last time. Do they loot their campaign funds before their inevitable withdrawal?

Another answer is that by being in for a while, they get to change what topics are being discussed. A lot of people think Lindsay Graham, for instance, is only running to get his foreign policy[sup]1[/sup] positions considered and perhaps adopted by a front runner.

Also, some are really running for vice president.
[sup]1/sup

[adaher]

I suspect that all are running either to win, or to be poised to win next time, since historically, unless you are the son of a former President, you have to lose the nomination before you can win it.

[DrumBum]

@adaher

Not interested at all. He’s GWB with less intelligence and curiosity.

That being said, don’t count him out. K street loves this guy. If he doesn’t stumble again he’ll have no problem raising money.

Ahh. So basically a Reagan clone with glasses and a funny accent.

[Jonathan_Chance]

I think people are discounting him too early. Right now the field is:

Jeb

Rubio
Walker
Perry

Cast of thousands

Perry, owing to his potential money machine in Texas, is as viable a candidate as the other two. And the only reason Jeb is above them is he has access to deeper pockets. Perry’s right there in the invisible primary and there’s no reason he couldn’t get the nomination if the cards lay correctly.

[Gyrate]

@ElvisL1ves

He’s wearing glasses and regular shoes now, so he must be smarter.

That explains his recent press announcement:

The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.

[Gatopescado]

Oops!

[Sam_Lowry]

@Jonathan_Chance

Perry, owing to his potential money machine in Texas, is as viable a candidate as the other two. And the only reason Jeb is above them is he has access to deeper pockets. Perry’s right there in the invisible primary and there’s no reason he couldn’t get the nomination if the cards lay correctly.

I don’t think it’s impossible for him to get the nomination, I’d say it’s a longshot. FiveThirtyEight has a good analysis:

Perry became the front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination essentially the moment he put a cowboy-boot-clad toe on the starting line. He led the Republican field with 28 percent in September 2011, according to an average of national polls. But by the time it was all over, he had earned just 0.3 percent of the national vote in caucuses and primaries. In other words, he did about 28 percentage points worse than his pre-voting polling promised.

He went from 27.8% to just 0.3% of support. I’m sure some of those 27.5% will support him again, and think he’s learned from the mistakes of last time. But I’m sure that many of them will be anticipating another oops moment and figure to just support someone else instead.

Also, this time around he’s starting off with a felony indictment. I don’t know how likely he is to get jail time, I’m guessing not very likely, but I would think that would dull some of his shine. Even if someone was the perfect candidate for me, I’d be hesitant to support them knowing that some of the money I donate would go towards their defense of abuse of power charges.

[RTFirefly]

@Jonathan_Chance

I think people are discounting him too early. Right now the field is:

Jeb

Rubio
Walker
Perry

Cast of thousands

Perry, owing to his potential money machine in Texas, is as viable a candidate as the other two. And the only reason Jeb is above them is he has access to deeper pockets. Perry’s right there in the invisible primary and there’s no reason he couldn’t get the nomination if the cards lay correctly.

Nah, and the reason is, he hasn’t gotten any smarter since 2011; if anything, he’s already demonstrating that his problems back then weren’t just an unlucky moment or two. Meanwhile, the competition is a lot thicker for the same voters he might’ve appealed to.

I’d characterize the field more like this:

Walker
Jeb

Cruz
Rubio

Everyone else.

[ElvisL1ves]

Walker doesn’t have staying power, not if he’s gonna keep saying things like this:

Ronald Reagan’s union-busting was “the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime.”
…
“I think foreign policy is something that’s not just about having a PhD or talking to PhDs,” he said. It’s about leadership.” As evidence, he praised Reagan’s breaking of the Professional Air Traffic Controls Organization in 1981, a devastating blow to organized labor, as a global demonstration of strength. “It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world” that America “wouldn’t be messed with,” he claimed.

But wait, it gets better:

These remarks came two days after the Wisconsin governor claimed his experience defeating public sector unions enabled him to fight ISIS. “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,”

[YogSothoth]

Well he doesn’t have staying power if we’re talking about sane, rational people, but these are Republican primary voters! Last time around, even the likes of Frothy Anal Lube, Congresswoman Crazy-Eyes, and Black Pizza the Hutt got top billing at least for a little while

[RTFirefly]

@ElvisL1ves

Walker doesn’t have staying power, not if he’s gonna keep saying things like this:
But wait, it gets better:

He said those things three months ago. If saying those things were going to affect his staying power in the campaign for the GOP nomination, three months is certainly enough time to see the effects.

So, have his polls nosedived yet? No? OK, let’s get back to Perry.

[ElvisL1ves]

Yes, it’s going to be the Whackjob Fox Darling of the Month again, right up until the guy the Moneyed Interests have chosen gets nominated, just like last time.

[Lance_Turbo]

@Jonathan_Chance

Right now the field is:

Jeb

Rubio
Walker
Perry

Cast of thousands

@RTFirefly

I’d characterize the field more like this:

Walker
Jeb

Cruz
Rubio

Everyone else.

Current RCP averages as of 6/5/2015:
Bush 13.2
Walker 12.5
Rubio 12
Carson 9.2
Paul 9.2
Huckabee 8.7
Cruz 8.5
Christie 4.8
Trump 4
Perry 2.7
Kasich 2
Santorum 2
Fiorina 1.6
Graham 1.3

I don’t know where you want to draw the line between top tier and everyone else, but Perry is polling behind Trump and Christie. This guy is forked.

[ElvisL1ves]

He’s still in the Top 10 there, and qualifies for Leaders’ Night at the Fox debates. The debate for the Bottom 10 figures to be entertaining as all hell.

Only two more months…

[Balance]

@ElvisL1ves

He’s still in the Top 10 there, and qualifies for Leaders’ Night at the Fox debates. The debate for the Bottom 10 figures to be entertaining as all hell.

Clown cars got brackets?

[Procrustus]

It’s a sobering thought that none of the Republican candidates for 2016 are as sane and plausible as Mitt Romney was in 2012. If someone is a non-crazy Republican, where do they turn?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Back into the work of fiction they sprang from? [/rimshot]

[elucidator]

@Procrustus

It’s a sobering thought that none of the Republican candidates for 2016 are as sane and plausible as Mitt Romney was in 2012. If someone is a non-crazy Republican, where do they turn?

Certain intelligent and acute observers have suggested that a Draft Romney! movement will soon be afoot.

[ElvisL1ves]

I’d like to see more of a Welcome Home recruitment movement by the Democrats.