Perry's stratagems

#1, while Rick Perry would never use Romney's Mormonism as a campaign issue (no matter how much he dislikes him), the evangelical far-right wing isn't definitely not above that. This is not unexpected; as I've pointed out before, evangelical Christians who truly believe that Mormonism is a heresy (not just a different religion, like Judaism) could not possibly vote for him. And that according to the numbers apparently locks down about 25% of the solid GOP primary vote for Perry.

Why Perry's backers won't lay off Romney's Mormonism:


#2, E.J. Dionne has described how Perry is planning to spend his campaign money, a strategy that is very telling (and potentially winning):

Romney and the joys of punditry

"So the Perry campaign believes in saving all their resources until a last minute, huge television ad buy rather than trying to combat the media narrative by wasting money on ads before they drive any votes. This strategy lends itself to a last minute rise in the polls, rather than peaking too early.

All these lessons make the Perry campaign look artificially weaker in the polls than they plan to be on Election Day. The plan for Governor Perry is to peak in the year of the election and not the year before (see Fred Thompson).

This, he concludes, means that Perry “may, at the very least, have a lot better chance than the 10 % that the markets are giving him of winning the Republican nomination for President in 2012.”

Because of the current sway of the hard right-wingers in the GOP, Perry is still to be feared greatly.