Twenty-four hours before the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas, an adviser to Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Perry would try a new strategy after a series of lackluster debate performances. “We’re going to pay a little less attention to the rules,” the adviser, who asked to remain anonymous, said.  “They have rarely been enforced, and we’re not going to pay much attention to them.”  In previous debates, the adviser explained, Perry had tried to abide by time limits, leading some observers to say he seemed passive and withdrawn.  Perry intended to make sure that didn’t happen in Las Vegas.

It didn’t. The Las Vegas debate was Perry’s fifth, but the first one in which Perry really showed up to play.  That doesn’t mean he won, doesn’t mean he was particularly likable, doesn’t mean he always had cogent answers.  But it does mean that Perry, on the verge of being completely written off as a candidate, gave himself a chance to get back in the game.