Why Rick Perry is still really first (and still to be feared)

So, Rick Perry is slipping in the polls right now. Mitt Romney is holding steady. The liberal media see this as signs of weakness in the Perry campaign.

Sadly, this is all very misleading. Polls question everybody, and if if they question GOPers, they question a broad cross-section of self-identified Republicans. But that doesn't capture the hard-core that is destined to vote in the primaries, nor does it capture the mindset of what GOP voters will face in the primary voting booth. Essentially the viable choices by the primaries (which are happening in December now???) will boil down to Perry and Romney.

When the hard-core GOP voter, especially the Tea Party acolyte, enters the booth and sees the choices, they will physically be unable to select Romney. After all, though he waffled thoroughly, he accepts that the world is warming. He implemented a health care plan in Massachusetts. And above all else, he's a Mormon. How can the evangelical voters that embrace the fundamentalism of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, and of course Perry's, bring themselves to vote for someone who is not just not a Christian, but who practices a religion that they consider heretical and blasphemous?

Answer: THEY CAN'T.

So as the pretenders like Gingrich and Santorum and Cain fall, what will be left is the proven, smooth, executive, electable, tested, handsome Perry against the wishy-washy Mormon Romney. So despite Perry's apparent struggles, I am pretty certain that he will emerge as the
candidate-of-choice of the far right that will dominate the early primary voting. If Romney enters primary season as the "front-runner", and then falls to Perry consistently in the early going, he's dead, and Perry will steamroll to the nomination. And given the persistent economic problems that aren't the President's fault but which nevertheless the public (especially brain-challenged Republicans) blame him for, Perry has a path to the presidency.

And then, in the words of Denzel Washington, God Help Us All.