When it comes to Rick Perry’s presidential campaign, it’s do or die in Iowa.
With a new focus on voter meet-and-greets, his Christian faith, and the announcement of a two-week, 42-city bus tour of Iowa starting Dec. 14, the Texas governor has signaled a shift in campaign strategy this month. As the Republican field shuffles in the wake of Herman Cain’s exit, Perry is looking to re-enter the spotlight.
“I readily admit that our campaign didn’t go as smoothly and as positively as I would have liked,” Perry said Friday in an interview with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register.
He admitted to making “errors” and asked Americans—especially Iowans—to “give me a second look.” To that end, he is kicking off the bus tour and has signaled that his new priority is retail politics in Iowa—reportedly one of his greatest strengths—rather than debates, which have repeatedly proved stumbling blocks to his campaign.
If Perry can finish in Iowa behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, he could survive the state and buy time to build a narrative that his campaign is still alive, and arguably wait for Gingrich’s campaign to implode.
Perry tried to help that goal along this week, going negative on Gingrich for the first time with a new ad that slammed Gingrich and Romney as “big government liberals” due to their past support of the individual healthcare mandate.
While Gingrich seems to have benefited the most from the suspension of Cain’s campaign, with many polls showing him crushing long-term frontrunner Romney, his surge is too recent to be considered completely stable. Romney is sustaining a steady position in the polls in Iowa, even though his campaign’s investment in the state is relatively recent.
If Perry can survive Iowa by beating out the second-tier candidates for third or fourth place—Ron Paul is the other likely candidate to offer him competition—the field will begin to narrow without leaving him behind, predicts GOP political consultant Matt Mackowiak.
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Perry needs to come across as clever and well informed. He has to find away to explain his record in Texas of supporting “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism”. Based on polling data, his pro-immigration stances is actually popular with Republican voters (as long as coupled with border security). His strong federalism might be a selling point (you let my state ban abortions and gay marriage, we let your state legalize drugs and whatever).
He can embrace Cain’s attitudes and tax policies (especially getting rid of the payroll tax, which no one seems to really like).
Gingrich has a problem with votes old enough to remember how he wanted to impeach a president for having a girlfriend while he was starting on his third wife before having divorced the second. He is also remember for getting mad at the president and closing down the government (which means giving the civil service a paid vacation, which accomplishes nothing). Gingrich may condemn corporate welfare and bailouts, but his record wouldn’t match the rhetoric. Plus Gingrich (as well as Romney) were Vietnam era draft dodgers – Perry was a Captain in the Air Force.