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RedStatehttps://redstate.com/erick/2012/01/04/can-rick-perry-come-back/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usTue, 09 Jun 2026 11:08:45 -0400Can Rick Perry Come Back?<![CDATA[If Rick Perry leaves the Republican race, there will not be a candidate in the field who authentically represents smaller government. While many conservatives don’t mind activist government so long as the ends are conservative, the willful use of activist government for conservative ends leaves in place a government perfectly capable of activist liberal government when conservatives lose.The only way to fully turn the tide of big government is therefore to support someone who is willing to scale back government. Unfortunately, the only candidate with both an agenda to significantly cut government and a record of actually doing so is the flawed candidate from Texas with a campaign no one can be proud of.But can he win? Yes. And should he stay in? Absolutely. If Rick Perry leaves, conservatives who want Washington out of their lives will have fully ceded the field to other men, mostly conservative, who are not as committed to the idea of “making Washington as inconsequential in our lives as possible.”What would it take though to get voters to look at Perry again? I think the only way he can go forward is to have a full throated and honest reboot of his campaign. To do that, he must clean house with a full on purge of his political and communications staff.David Carney, who I know and like, and Joe Allbaugh, who I do not know but admire, must both go. Ray Sullivan must go. Mark Miner must go. I would suggest even Tony Fabrizo, who just about everyone internally at the Perry campaign, regardless of faction, blames as the chief instigator of the recent Politico story must go.Perry has to demonstrate he recognizes just how terrible his campaign is. And that means people at the top level need to go. A lot of the Politico story was deadly accurate. The Perry team initially treated his campaign as running for Governor of Texas. He was underprepared and ill suited for debates. His communications strategy was and is a mess.Look no further than Mark Miner, his spokesman today, being asked about Governor Perry’s tweet that he was in and, instead of saying “I’ll get back to you,” conveyed uncertainty. The headline went from “Perry Stays In” to “Perry’s Staff Has No Idea.”But it goes much deeper than that and I would submit none of us can treat a Perry reboot seriously unless he actually does reboot. It goes much deeper than people. People is policy and this is ultimately about the policies Perry will champion indicated first and foremost by his leadership abilities to stop the suck in his campaign.]]>Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:03:05 -0500<![CDATA[Erick Erickson]]>https://redstate.com/erick/2012/01/04/can-rick-perry-come-back-n41709