Like Fred Thompson’s failed campaign four years ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s late entry into the presidential race was accompanied by a quick vault to the top of polls, followed by a precipitous fall. His decision to drop out before the South Carolina primary actually makes Perry’s performance far worse than Thompson, who performed better in Iowa and New Hampshire and garnered 16 percent of the South Carolina vote. I think Perry’s demise should cement the idea that in modern campaigns, there’s no real room for a late entrance.
Whenever there’s talk of a late entrance, people always talk about the fact that Bill Clinton entered the race in October 1991 and still won — but that was simply a different era.
Thompson and Perry campaigns suffered from different problems — with Thompson, it was laziness and with Perry, he couldn’t debate. Had a candidate such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., jumped in this fall, they may have not had the same problems as Perry or Thompson, but they would likely have encountered different problems.
I half-joked on Twitter last night that it amazes me that anybody can actually get elected president. Just to win a primary a candidate needs to have fire in the belly, money, organization, debating skills, and the ability to endure endless scrutiny and inevitable gaffes. A candidate that enters late doesn’t have time to prepare for this tremendous challenge and any mistakes get magnified. Newt Gingrich, despite his decades of political experience, stumbled out of the gate when he started his campaign, but was able to recover. Rick Santorum had spent months campaigning in Iowa, laying the roots for his late surge there. And Mitt Romney and Ron Paul — the candidates with the best organizations and the only ones to qualify for the Virginia ballot — have been effectively running since 2007.
Perry’s last several debate performances were actually pretty decent. Had he entered the race earlier, perhaps he would have had his stumbles when fewer people were paying attention, allowing him time to shine in the fall. But his late entry just added that much more pressure.
Even now, people who aren’t happy with the remaining choices are deluding themselves into thinking there’s still time for another dream candidate to enter late. But there’s a growing body of evidence that this is simply too hard to pull off.
