Is Rick Perry Done?

Is Rick Perry Done?

Over the last week, we've seen increased speculation and encouragement for New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, to enter the GOP race. We've also seen the emergence of Herman Cain after his win in the Florida Straw Poll. We also had this drop this week:
Once again, the poll numbers are in and Rick Perry has dropped:

Among announced candidates — without Christie or Palin in the race — Romney leads with 25 percent, which is identical to his support from a month ago. Perry and Cain are tied for second with 16 percent, numbers representing a 13-point drop for Perry and a 12-point rise for Cain since early September.

What may be worse is that his core support seems to be eroding:

The falloff for Perry against other announced candidates has been particularly steep among those aligned with the tea party movement. In early September, Perry had a 3-to-1 advantage over any other candidate among those “strongly” backing the tea party, but his supported has plummeted from 45 percent to 10 percent in this group.

Conservatives aren't happy with the Texas Governor either:

Among all conservatives, Perry’s support has been sliced in half, from 39 to 19 percent. Some of his decline may stem from shaky debate showings: A majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who have watched recent debates say the more they hear about Perry, the less they like him.

I pretty much said the same exact thing in a recent blog post. It's worth checking out this graphic that shows how fast Perry's support is finding its way to other candidates, mainly Herman Cain. However, it's probably most relevant to see how he compares to Mitt Romney, the current front runner:

Romney has big – 20-point – advantages over Perry on two important questions: experience and electability. When asked who has the better experience to be president, Romney wins 50 to 30 percent.

Perry's struggles are being documented by the media. Some have questioned the Drudge effect:

Drudge's editorial decisions replace Perry's message of solid, inspirational, conservatism with an inept, flagging candidate. And while Drudge doesn't exert the broad influence over the scattered media landscape that he did over a more concentrated media five or 10 years ago, he still wields immense power, particularly in shaping the narrative of the right. He has helped chip away at Perry's image to hundreds of thousands of conservative readers daily, just for starters.

Blogs definitely have a big say in shaping narrative, but Drudge has to be one of the biggest. Many people go to his site as a source to finding links to news articles. Sometimes people just read his headlines without reading the articles. It's definitely been a factor, but hasn't Perry just done poorly himself?

Christian Science concludes what we've already heard about Perry, he doesn't wear well:

What happened in mid-September? That’s when debate season got rolling. Whether voters watched the debates or not, they appear to have heard much about Perry’s poor performances. It is also possible that publicity about Perry’s description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” has taken a toll on his support.

The hits keep coming.

My interest in Perry sputtered rapidly since he entered the race. His first speech was open, honest and spoke to the ideals that America should live up to. Unfortunately, he has shown that he might not have the qualities to be the President of the United States. We have already elected a great orator into office. We need someone who will get things done. It's not the flubs which have undone Perry, it's his ability to achieve. I think people have realized that his potential is much lower than initially expected and the voters are flocking to other candidates.

Rick Perry is done as far as I'm concerned, and I would like to see Herman Cain get more feature time in the debates. We deserve to see more of a candidate that actually has broad appeal through out the party.