Mitch Perry
First of all, let me give a public welcome to the newest addition to the Florida Politics/SaintPetersBlog family, James Rosica, late of The Tampa Tribune. I looking forward to reading his reports.
The advent of the super PACS, we’ve been told, is that it will keep presidential candidates around a lot longer than before, since there’s a separate venue for fundraising. The idea being a few rich millionaires can single-handedly keep a candidate alive.
We’re about to see whether that’s going to work with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose campaign hasn’t gone anywhere so far in 2015.
Reports surfaced Monday night that Perry has stopped paying his staff at the national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The Washington Post reports that the Perry campaign is scaling back spending to bare essentials, such as paying for commercial plane tickets and hotel rooms for the candidate and an aide or two, and hoping for a miracle, like a breakthrough at the next debate.
Good luck with that.
The next GOP presidential debate is more than a month from now, at the Reagan Library in Southern California. But all is not lost for Perry, because he’s got “a group” of super PACs called Opportunity and Freedom that had $17 million in the bank as of last month. Now, technically, the super PAC can’t work with the campaign, meaning it can’t pay staff who are reportedly all now working gratis for Perry. The super PAC can keep Perry afloat by running ads in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, the bulk of where campaign money goes.
Of course, the first election in the country isn’t until February, so Perry is going to need more direct fundraising, or he’s not going to be able to campaign.
That’s the problem for the GOP and their 17 candidates running for the presidential nomination. Normal attrition would start reducing those numbers around now. If memory serves, it was about this time four years ago when Tim Pawlenty stunningly left the race. He had put a lot of chips in doing well in the Iowa Straw Poll, and of course lost out to among others, then-Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.
But the Iowa Republican Party canceled the Iowa Straw Poll, which would have taken place last month. Although that was applauded by most people in the party (and the media), it might have been a severe enough rebuke for the Jim Gilmores and George Patakis in the race to realize that voters just really aren’t into them.
Instead, they get that lack of recognition and love on a daily basis via polls.
In any event, if Perry doesn’t get the type of raves from the Reagan Library debate that Marco Rubio and Carly Florina generated from the Quicken Loans Arena event last week, all the super PAC spending in the world may not be enough to deny reality.
In other news …
Marco Rubio‘s moving up in the world. He’s now the recipient of criticism from no less than Hillary Clinton, who said she was more outraged by his stance on abortion rights than Donald Trump‘s comments towards Megyn Kelly.
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The Draft Joe Biden super PAC added new hires Monday, as they hope that the vice president will soon commit to challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president.
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A Hillsborough County judge on Friday rejected the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission’s request for injunctive relief against Uber, meaning the popular ridesharing company can continue to operate here in Hillsborough. PTC head Kyle Cockream says his agency doesn’t want Uber to go away, just to play by some of their rules.
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And Polk City House Republican Neil Combee has already filed a bill for next year in the Legislature that will prevent people like that guy from St. Petersburg earlier this year who created a shooting range in their backyard. The bill has the support from the NRA, so you can bank that it will get passed.
