If not victory for Rick Perry, at least redemption

Current polls suggest that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has a better chance of being excluded from the initial GOP presidential primary debates than being chosen as the party’s 2016 nominee. Long odds are however nothing new for the man from Paint Creek. While his current prospects for victory appear remote, unlike some candidates with higher poll numbers, Perry does at least possess a plausible, albeit narrow, potential path to victory. But even if Perry fails to capture the Republican nomination, his presidential campaign could still serve as a form of political redemption, a way to show the American public that the Rick Perry it saw in 2011 and 2012 was not the real Rick Perry, who is a far more talented politician than the one it remembers from the 2012 election cycle.

{mosads}When Perry formally launched his candidacy for the 2012 nomination in August 2011, he rocketed to the top of the national Republican presidential nomination polls, where he remained for about eight weeks. Then came a series of strategic errors, assorted gaffes and lackluster debate performances (including the infamous “oops”), culminating in January 2012 with a fifth-place finish in Iowa, less than 1 percent of the vote in New Hampshire and the end of his presidential bid two days before the South Carolina primary.

On paper, all of the things that initially made Perry a top-tier candidate in 2011 still largely hold true in 2015. Perry served a record 14 years as governor of the nation’s second most populous state and can take at least some credit for Texas’s strong economic growth over the past two decades. While Perry didn’t invent the Texas model of limited government, low taxes and business-friendly policies, he did protect and deepen the model during his tenure. Perry also continues to be located in an ideological/policy sweet spot for a GOP primary candidate — his policy profile, personal history and track record all appeal to Tea Party conservatives and social conservatives — with a pragmatic West Texas approach to politics that is viewed positively by many in the Republican establishment. And, finally, Perry remains a very gifted retail politician, one who, unlike four years ago, has all the time in the world to personally meet thousands upon thousands of prospective Iowa Republican caucus participants, not to mention voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, over the next eight months.

But some other things have changed compared to four years ago. The GOP field this time around is of course much stronger than in 2012. Perry is also no longer governor of Texas and therefore does not enjoy the campaign finance benefits and national media coverage that running the nation’s second-largest, and most vibrant, state once provided. You also never get a second chance to make a first impression, and unlike the “Men in Black,” Perry does not possess a “neuralyzer” with which to erase the entire 2012 electoral cycle from the minds of elites and voters. And, if that were not enough, Perry will be campaigning with a grand jury indictment hanging over his head. While the indictment is widely considered to be without merit — unless a governor using his veto power and playing political hardball to try to persuade a disgraced Democratic district attorney to resign is a crime in the Lone Star State — given two equally attractive candidates, political elites and donors generally prefer to endorse and contribute to the candidate who is not under indictment.

Perry’s candidacy will live or die based on his performance in the Iowa Republican caucus. Success in Iowa could in theory generate momentum and enthusiasm for Perry’s candidacy in the subsequent contests in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. And, on the first non-carve-out primary date, March 1, all eyes will be on Texas and its 155 delegates, where an evenly distributed plurality share of as little as 25 to 30 percent of the vote across the state’s 36 congressional districts could net Perry around two-thirds of the delegates up for grabs on that date. If this low-probability scenario were by some twist of fate to somehow play out, Perry could find himself in the top tier of GOP candidates with more than three-fourths of the party’s primaries and caucuses still to take place.

Failure in Iowa would likely signal the end of the Perry 2016 campaign. However, if the Rick Perry the nation witnesses campaigning across the country over the next eight months is the same Rick Perry who was undefeated in six consecutive statewide Republican primaries and general elections in what is far and away the country’s most populous red state, then even in defeat Perry will have been successful by achieving political redemption.

Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science and the Joseph D. Jamail chair in Latin American studies at Rice University, as well as a co-author of Texas Politics Today: 2015-2016 Edition. Follow him @MarkPJonesTX.