Rick Perry has time. Despite his relatively late entry into the field, there are still months between now and the first Republican primary as well as fourteen months before the general election. When the Democrats and their media allies began smearing Sarah Palin, there were only two months for all the accurate information to be communicated at the height of election season while the McCain-Palin campaign was being outspent 2-1. Until Palin entered the race, McCain had never led; so precious campaign resources had to be spent in the futile attempt to keep McCain’s polling numbers above water rather than rebutting the various and sundry lies and distortions of her record. With Perry at the top of the ticket, rebutting the myriad attempts at “Palinization” will be a primary focus of the campaign rather than an afterthought as it was in 2008.Rick Perry’s campaign is tech-savvy. In 2008, Obama won the online war against a candidate who “referred to himself as computer illiterate.” The contrast with 2012 couldn’t be more stark: Rick Perry is one of the most active governors on social media, has been hosting blogger summits and announced his candidacy at the RedState Gathering – a convention of conservative bloggers and activists. It will be much more difficult for Barack Obama and his supporters to spread unchecked rumors and outright untruths against a campaign which is equally adept at using the internet.Texas isn’t Alaska. While Alaska is the largest state by land mass, it’s 46th in population with a smaller total population than any of the 50 most populous cities in the United States. Texas, on the other hand, is the second most populous state with the 4th, 6th, 25th and 35th largest cities in the country. In addition, while Alaska seemed exotic and somewhat alien to many Americans – existing as it does so far north and disconnected from “The Lower 48,” Texas is practically the geographic keystone in the arc of that same “Lower 48.”Palin had been governor for less than two years while Perry has been governor for more than a decade. While it was relatively easy for Palin’s opponents to dismiss her as a “small town mayor” with no experience, it’s next to impossible to sell that argument against Perry who has been in elected office for 27 years and statewide office for more than twenty.
Sarah Palin was the canary in the coal mine. The problem for Democrats attempting to “Palinize” Rick Perry is that they so recently did just that to Sarah Palin only three short years ago. Neither Perry, nor any other Republican candidate, will be as caught off-guard by the whirlwind of deceit and misinformation coming from the Obama campaign as the McCain campaign obviously was. More than three weeks ago, we highlighted several stories about Perry and wondered whether it was an effort to raise his public profile in advance of his announcement. In doing the research for this article and with the benefit of hindsight, it seems more likely that the Perry campaign was trying to pre-empt the inevitable distortions and factual errors of his biography by the very same people who regularly took liberties with that of Sarah Palin.Does all of this mean that Rick Perry will be able to escape being Palinized? If he does, it will be solely because he and his campaign made a determined effort to keep it from happening and not because the very same Democrats and Establishment Republicans who never let the truth or common decency stand in their way of doing their best to destroy Sarah Palin suddenly stopped trying.
