The super PAC supporting Rick Perry’s teetering presidential campaign is throwing the former Texas governor a lifeline.
Austin Barbour, the Republican strategist behind Opportunity and Freedom PAC, told the Washington Examiner that his organization is adjusting its strategy after news that Perry is short on cash and has halted paychecks to campaign employees.
Super PACs usually invest their money on television advertising and other forms of paid media and leave voter turnout to a candidate’s official campaign, which is deemed better equipped to execute get-out-the-vote activities.
But Barbour said Opportunity and Freedom PAC is building a ground game operation to keep Perry viable.
“Just because it doesn’t say in the typical super PAC playbook that you don’t do that, doesn’t mean that you can’t,” Barbour said late Tuesday.
Rick Perry’s financially strapped presidential campaign confirmed late Tuesday that it has stopped paying its national staff for the time being. On Monday, news broke that the Perry campaign could no longer afford to pay its team in South Carolina.
The move is not expected to impact the former Texas governor’s campaign travel, Perry senior advisor Jeff Miller said. But it does raise questions about his future, particularly given the deep and talented field of Republicans seeking the 2016 nomination. Miller said the governor and his team aren’t discouraged, and have been buoyed by the fact that no one has quit the campaign in the wake of this latest challenge, save for one aide who simply couldn’t afford to work without pay.
“That makes me feel good,” Miller said in a telephone interview. “They believe what I believe, which is that there is absolutely a path forward for Rick Perry.”
Perry is trailing in national polls and failed to qualify for the prime time edition of the first presidential debate, televised by Fox News last Thursday. The Texan was running 12 out of 17 candidates, with 1.6 percent support, in the RealClearPolitics.com average of the most recent surveys. The Perry campaign insists that it is not discouraged and that it has enough money for its candidate to travel and get himself to campaign events in the early states.
Barbour said Opportunity and Freedom would focus on building a ground game in Iowa, host of the first nominating contest of the 2016 GOP primary. Barbour said his group was on the verge of inking an experienced field team there, including a Des Moines-based state director and deputy that would probably work from Iowa City. The Perry super PAC wouldn’t be the first outside group to broaden its scope of work on behalf of its preferred candidate.
Believe Again, the super PAC backing Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential bid, has been hosting town hall meeting-style campaign events for the Louisiana Republican since he entered the race in late June. Barbour said OFP received an unsolicited donation of $100,000 this week from a Texas rancher. He said the group plans to spend August building a field team and would begin fundraising and advertising again in September. Federal law prohibits super PACs and campaigns from coordinating.
“We have to be really patient,” Barbour said. “We know the governor is going to have a breakout opportunity.”
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
