Rick Perry: The Way Out

Rick Perry's wife recently contended that Rick Perry has been brutalized for his faith by the media:

It's been a rough month. We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press to where I need this today...We are being brutalized by our opponents, and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him, because of his faith. He is the only true conservative – well, there are some true conservatives. And they're there for good reasons. And they may feel like God called them too. But I truly feel like we are here for that purpose.

This seems a bit misguided because, in my opinion, doubts about Perry's campaign have been warranted by his poor turnouts at the debates and his lack of substantiative plans for America. There was also the "niggerhead" fiasco.

Oh, and now there's this:

"My son had to resign his job because of federal regulations that Washington has put on us," Mrs. Perry said while campaigning for her husband in South Carolina, after a voter shared the story of losing his job.

"He resigned his job two weeks ago because he can't go out and campaign with his father because of SEC regulations," she continued, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission. "He has a wife... he's trying to start a business. So I can empathize."

"My son lost his job because of this administration," she said a few minutes later.

Uh, what? He voluntarily resigned:

According to several reports, Perry’s son, Griffin worked as an investment banker at Deutche Bank before voluntarily resigning his job two weeks ago to work on his father’s presidential campaign. SEC regulations stipulate that it’s illegal to be an investment advisor and work on a campaign.

I don't know how you can blame that on the current administration. Unless it was a product of recent campaign reform, it has nothing to do with the current administration. Obama has been blamed for so many things that have not been true, particularly by the Perry and Bachmann camps (the candidates especially). Anita Perry needs to get a clue.

Anita Perry is speaking out for her husband because he is struggling. He needs something to get him going. He's lost ground and is losing more ground. He has to have some element to pick him up. Anita Perry's speaking out might hurt the Texas Governor though:

Mrs. Perry insists that her husband is authentic and went so far as to suggest that his opponents aren't. She'll have a hard time convincing Herman Cain's fans of that. And while the idea of a religious "elect" or chosen people may be part of some Christian theologies, most voters aren't likely to subscribe to the belief that Mr. Perry has been handpicked by God. Voters tend to like picking the candidates themselves.

To his credit, he's not alienating all voters:

“We are going to participate whenever and wherever they are,” said Robert Black, a Perry campaign spokesman.

Some of the other Republican candidates are boycotting the Nevada caucus because they moved up their primary. While it is disappointing that Nevada moved up their primary, it's important that the people get to hear what the candidates say and have a say themselves in which one represents them. This is a good move by Perry, in a campaign that has been closer to lackluster than spectacular.

I criticized Perry earlier this week for his withholding of a jobs plan. Well, he came out with one:

"Right here in Pennsylvania, and across the state line in West Virginia and Ohio, we will tap the full potential of the Marcellus Shale and create another 250,000 jobs," he said in unveiling a major piece of his overall economic plan.

Does this sound familiar? Sounds like Texas, don't it:

Even in Texas, the industries classified by the US Labor Department as "oil and gas extraction" and "mining support" account for just about 2 of every 100 jobs. But jobs in basic industries like mining or manufacturing typically help sustain many other jobs throughout a local economy. And over the past decade, Texas has seen energy jobs rise as a share of its economy.

Compared with Texas, other states appear to have plenty of room to grow. In the other 49 states collectively, the "oil and gas" and "mining support" industries account for less than 0.3 percent of all jobs. Those totals don't include some other energy-related jobs, such as in coal mining or renewable sources.

We've heard this type of plan before from Bachmann and Gingrich. The problem is the plan might be unattainable. A lot of these aren't promises, they're wishes that would need congress's approval:

“It’d be very difficult for an administration to walk back these regulations by itself,” says Case Western University law professor Jonathan Adler, who’s no fan of the rules. The EPA, after all, is required to regulate carbon by the Supreme Court. Perry’s administration could try to overturn the agency’s “Endangerment Finding,” a scientific document arguing that carbon-dioxide poses a threat to human health and welfare. But given the solidity of climate science — and the fact that the EPA has been warning about global warming for the past 15 years — that’d be a hard sell in the courts. If Perry wanted to junk air-pollution rules, he’d need Congress.

I think overall, this plan falls short because much of it is out of the President's control. Just like the tax code and other initiative. The United States is not Texas and not every state has energy supporting industries. You can't rely on that. To go further, it's not going to make up for what Perry is produced so far. For the most part, I think candidates are judged by their substance. You do have to have the presidential look and composure. Perry has finally brought substance, but I don't think it makes up for everything else. His campaign is misfiring all over the place, and I don't know if he can correct that. He dug a hole for himself and there might not be a way out.