“If Perry has a weak finish in Iowa and follows that by coming in at the back of the pack in New Hampshire — where he scored an approval rating lower than President Barack Obama among GOP voters in a poll released last week — and a middling showing in South Carolina, it’s hard to see how the Perry campaign won’t quickly disappear.

“Perry sees things differently. Asked whether his campaign could go on if he’s not in the top three in Iowa, Perry told POLITICO, ‘Absolutely. The what-ifs of ‘what if you show up second,’ or ‘what if you show up third’ or ‘what if you show up whatever’ — I’m campaigning; I’m pressing on.’…

“‘I sense a real opportunity for Perry to do well here. Candidate time on the ground is imperative, and Gov. Perry needs to make the deal in person. If he does this, then he has a real shot for a top three performance on caucus night,’ he said…

“‘I don’t know if he can win or not, but I think he’ll put in a much stronger turnout than anyone expects,’ said Ron Ankrom, an evangelical pastor who introduced Perry at an event in New Hampton on Sunday afternoon. ‘Gingrich’s numbers are soft. It’s drying up in front of us, almost daily.'”

“2012 is a year of enormous opportunity for conservatives. The sitting president is deeply unpopular and discredited, the economy is mired in the doldrums, and the public’s trust in Washington and its traditional ways is at an all-time low. Tea Party-backed conservative successes in 2010 show that the public is willing to embrace candidates who dissent from the bipartisan consensus – a consensus that gives us an ever-growing federal government in general and too much federal interference and favoritism in the economy in particular. President Obama’s deep unpopularity with independents, together with the growth of left-wing populist protest movements, shows that dissatisfaction with the status quo reaches far beyond the conservative base. But the failure of some Tea Party conservatives in 2010 is also a reminder that to win, we need candidates who are serious, experienced, and battle-tested. That’s Rick Perry…

“Perry is well-prepared by experience and temperament to take on the presidency. He’s the longest-serving Governor in the history of the nation’s second-largest state. He’s a calm, steady hand at the helm, with strong Christian faith and a stable family. He’s come up from humble, rural roots, served his country overseas in the Air Force, and made a living in the private sector as a rancher and cotton farmer. Perry is studious and deliberate in making decisions, and resolute without being unduly stubborn in carrying them out; when he’s erred, as with the Gardasil controversy, he’s backed down, but when he’s right he sticks to his guns. He’s been tested by crises in office, including Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008 (as well as the 300,000 refugees sent into Texas by Hurricane Katrina) and 2011′s wildfires. And he’ll appoint conservatives aplenty to his administration: a look at who he will owe his nomination to, if he pulls this out, tells us that. Armed with conservative convictions and surrounded by solid conservative advisors, Perry has the necessary experience and temperament to get the job done…

“Perry’s greatest asset is that he has a tremendous story to tell about the success of the Texas economy. When it comes to the Texas economy, it is important to start with what Governor Perry has not done. He has not micro-managed the Texan economy with a heavy hand. During his ten years in office, Gov. Perry has instead encouraged and protected the pro-growth and small-government policies and attitudes that are widely considered to have caused the record boom in the state’s population, not to mention a remarkably quick recovery from the recession that the rest of of the country seems to be still mired in. The Texas state budget is projected to have a surplus next year, thanks largely to increased sales tax and energy revenue (Texas has no state income tax); and has largely gotten back the jobs lost in the recession. Whether or not you credit the governor for the situation, consider this: Rick Perry’s political experience has been in an arena where not interfering in the economy for the sake of interfering has been shown to work. This is a valuable trait all in its own.”

“While some people are focusing on the three total hours of debates in the general election season, I’m focusing on the hundreds of hours of campaign ads stressing the fact of Texas job creation, until people want to hang themselves.

“Yes, they’ll be sick of it. But they will remember it…

“Some of Perry’s 10th Amendment ideas I consider glib, half-baked, and near-extremist– like the suggestion that perhaps individual states could manage social security for their citizens.

“That idea will go nowhere and in fact is no longer discussed.

“But that impulse — the idea that the first questions should always be ‘Wait, does the federal government need to do this? Is it even constitutional that they do this?’ — is the right impulse. Even when he’s wrong on this issue, he’s wrong for the right reasons.

“Gingrich and Romney may be smarter than Perry, and perhaps Romney would even be a more skilled technocratic administrator of government. (Gingrich seems far too disorganized and flighty to engage with this part of the job too much, apart from proposing bold, fundamental changes and then moving on to something else.)

“But I don’t want someone who is so confident that he is a more capable administrator of federal power. I want someone who is skeptical of federal power no matter who wields it, no matter how skilled and able an administrator he might be, even if that administrator is he himself, and so always prefers to shunt power away from the government to to the states, and their citizens.”

“Perry has clearly been a good Governor. He has not, however, been a great candidate. His early campaign was too Texas-centric. We all know about his debate performances. He has positions I disagree with. And his campaign has made some steps I also disagree with. But, I believe he could be a great President. He understand the limits of government, the power of the private sector to create prosperity and the dangers government policies pose to that. And, I believe he understands these principles in a more fundamental way than the other candidates.

“Over the next few years, America will face some existential questions. Will American exceptionalism endure or will we slip into a quasi-European welfare state in permanent decline? Our present trajectory is unsustainable. Even with a Republican House and, most likely, a Republican Senate after next year, the GOP in Washington doesn’t seem quite up to the task of reclaiming that ‘shining city on the hill.’ They can’t quite get beyond repainting a house whose foundation has cracked. We will need a President who is a strong leader with very grounded conservative convictions to navigate our way back to prosperity. One who understand that Washington has already assumed too much power and that future economic growth and personal liberty requires rolling back much of that power.

“Rick Perry is that man.”

Rick Perry’s swipe at Mitt Romney’s private equity career Saturday was delivered with the precision of a mallet. Perry lumped together Washington, Wall Street and government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, declaring Romney part of a general problem with taxpayer-funded largesse for government employees and bank bailouts…

“‘I don’t think you have to actually have an address on Wall Street to be a part of Wall Street. I don’t think anybody gets confused that Bain Capital is part of that whole Wall Street structure. I don’t think that’s lost on anybody,’ Perry told The Huffington Post Saturday…

“Perry’s comments risk looking like a pure anti-profit jab: a statement that because Romney made a lot of money in the general realm of high-dollar investments, he is de facto blameworthy. This kind of broad attack on the financial system is what got Newt Gingrich in trouble last week, when he too knocked Romney’s Bain Capital career.”

“Governor Palin believes former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Governor Mitt Romney will be the two frontrunners after Iowa. But, Palin cautioned not to count the “traditional conservatives” out, saying, ‘Bachmann and Santorum, of course, they are known by many as ‘the conservatives,’ and they will do better I think than some pundits predict.’

“Palin had kind words for Congressman Ron Paul, ‘guaranteeing’ he will definitely do well because ‘he has the loyal hard working base of independent patriots who know that he has fought on with his acknowledgement of domestic spending crisis that we face that has got to be addressed or we are going under.’

“Palin isn’t ruling Texas Gov. Rick Perry out, saying he has the money to potentially have a good showing in Iowa.”