Is Rick Perry Beginning to Self -Destruct?

From the years I lived in Texas while in-house counsel to an oil company I learned that in some ways Texas is a world unto itself, especially in the realm of politics. The fact that one can win the governor's office doesn't mean that one is ready for prime time on the national stage. Chimperator Bush made it to the national stage and the nation has paid a high price in putting Texas style politics - and intellectual limitations - in the White House. I'll admit, Rick Perry scares me to death and strikes in the same league as Michele Bachmann. Fortunately, his debate performances may be about to sink his cowboy style campaign, especially as more facts about the faux "Texas miracle" continue to come to light. Michael Medved - who I increasingly write off as a nutcase - has a column at The Daily Beast that's none to kind to Perry. Here are some highlights:

If two hours of questions and answers produced no decisive winner, they did indicate a clear loser. In his third debate appearance Rick Perry looked and sounded ill-prepared, uncertain, dull, vacuous and embarrassingly out of his depth. Even the Texan’s top admirers (and I like him personally and greatly respect his achievements as governor) must cringe at the chilling prospect of a Perry-Obama debate. The take-away message impression from the evening’s encounter showed everyone else getting better (even the crotchety, eccentric uncle-from-the-attic, Ron Paul) while Governor Perry got much worse.

What hurt him most weren’t the tentative, insecure moments when he tried to defend himself against attacks (from Rick Santorum in particular, but also from Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney) but the feeble, stumbling occasions when he tried to go on offense in his own right against his chief rival, Romney. An obviously canned “gotcha” line intended to slam Romney for switching sides on several major issues (abortion, gun rights, health care) collapsed into such tongue-tied incoherence that it became uncomfortable to watch. Romney deftly responded that he set out his substantive positions clearly and unequivocally in the book he wrote two years ago (No Apology) and that he stood behind every argument and proposal specified in the text.

In the weeks ahead, Perry’s campaign will begin to lose support from both the right and the center, and he’ll watch the broad coalition he’s tried to assemble begin to gradually disintegrate. After puzzlingly impotent defenses of his own record on in-state tuition for illegal aliens and the state-sponsored HPV vaccine, Perry will see desertions from true Tea Party believers and conviction conservatives on the question of authenticity, while he’ll simultaneously give up backers to Romney on the issue of electability.

The question isn’t whether Perry can sustain his current status as front runner (he can’t). It’s whether he can maintain enough support (for all his money and charm and currently formidable poll numbers) to remain in the race as a viable candidate at all.

For the sake of the nation, lets hope the implosion of Perry continues. We do not a less competent dose of the Chimperator.