No one would deny that Rick Perry has made some glaring mistakes in his still-young campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Under a constant media spotlight, he’s paid a high price for them. But imagine if the Texas governor had gotten into the race last February, instead of just a few weeks ago. He could have made mistakes when nobody was watching, and he would have had time to think things over, refine his positions, and polish his presentation — in short, to become a better candidate. Things would likely be much, much better for Team Perry today.
The last Republican who was a late entrant to the presidential race was former Sen. Fred Thompson, who declared his candidacy on Sept. 5, 2007. Coming in as a front-runner after months of buildup, Thompson’s campaign experienced difficulties from the very beginning, and the media glare seemed to exaggerate even the smallest problems. Thompson finished third in Iowa, sixth in New Hampshire, and left the race after a third-place finish in South Carolina.
“There’s no off-Broadway,” Thompson says as he recalls the campaign’s early days. “It’s all compressed. You don’t get a chance to knock the rough edges off.”
Starting late brought a variety of troubles. “If you as a candidate have not spent the last year or two putting together your organization and lining up the key people, that’s a problem,” says Thompson. “It’s not a date on the calendar as much as it is what you’ve done over the previous year. By definition, a person who is getting in late and making up his mind late has not done some of those things.”
There are plenty of other issues — raising money, lining up support, dealing with the press — but the biggest challenge for any late candidate is the most basic one: thinking things through.
“I think a candidate under these circumstances has to have skills and equilibrium that are superior to the other candidates,” Thompson explains. “You have to have time to think. You’ve had a lot of experience. You’ve had life experience, you’ve had government experience. What has all that taught you? You can’t just relate statistics and points and employment records and promise to repeal Obamacare on day one. Those are just ornaments that you put on the tree. You need the time to think things through.”
Does candidate Rick Perry give the impression of a man who has had time to think deeply about how he’s running for president, or why he’s doing it in the first place? The short answer is no.
Take Perry’s recent problems with immigration. The Texas governor’s views conflict with a significant portion of the Republican base. But what if, by the time he was attacked for those views during last week’s Republican debate, Perry had been making his case for months? What if he had been answering sometimes angry immigration questions in diners and town halls across Iowa since last winter? There’s no way he would have made a mistake like the “no heart” remark at the debate, which did incalculable damage to his image among conservatives.
The simple secret of campaigns is that good candidates get better with practice. Watch one give a stump speech in March, and then watch again in December, and it will likely be a lot better. There’s a reason Mitt Romney’s debate performances have been so much improved in this campaign than in 2007-2008. He’s been working at it a long time.
What applies to Perry applies doubly to any candidate who might join the race in the weeks to come. Does anyone believe New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has had the time and quiet to seriously think through why he would run for president? When Christie said repeatedly that he didn’t feel ready to be president, he was self-evidently correct; anybody who would say that isn’t ready to do what it takes to win the White House.
Of course, most of these lessons become clear only with the benefit of hindsight. Looking back, Thompson views his race with the humor that made him an appealing candidate in the first place. Returning my call, he began, “I hear you’re looking for some flash-in-the-pan expertise, and I can’t think of a better place to come.” Then, after explaining all that can go wrong in a late race, he paused for a moment and took stock. “Now that I’m out,” he said, “I have all the answers.”
Those are the answers Rick Perry is discovering at this very moment.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com
