Ed Morrissey at Hot Air Reports: When Rick Perry jumped into the race, many of us expected his skill at retail politicking to swamp the field in Iowa and perhaps run away with the nomination. Instead, a series of debate blunders and a lack of engagement in Iowa produced a stalled campaign struggling in the second tier. Perry admits that a back surgery in July took a bigger toll on his campaign than previously acknowledged, but that’s no excuse for the errors:
Q: How is your back?
A: My back is great. I’m back running again for the last six weeks. I think part of the reason you have seen a somewhat different candidate on the debates is my health, and (I’m) both physically and mentally just back in the game. You have fusion on your back, and it takes you a while to get back on your game.
Q: So were you not feeling good in those early debates?
A: I would suggest to you that I was pretty fatigued. No excuses. It was error. It’s what it is. Look, if anybody is looking for the perfect candidate, I’m not it.
I had a conversation about this over the weekend in Des Moines with a couple of friends before the debate. I’ve had back surgery — a laminectomy/disc evacuation, not a fusion, which is more serious — and five years later, I still have problems standing in one spot for a lengthy period of time. (Disneyland can be a bummer in that regard.) I couldn’t imagine having to go on the campaign trail a few weeks after surgery; in my case, I could barely walk without a cane by that time, and when I’m very fatigued, I still have issues with my right leg that can cause me to limp a bit.
That’s why I suspected that his performance issues were related to this surgery, and I’m not sure he’s entirely past them. I’ve seen Perry in person a few times before this summer, and he has always been dynamic and charismatic. In his campaign appearances this year, he has seemed more tentative, less energetic, and as a result less effective. In Des Moines on Saturday, Perry’s appearance at a veterans forum a few hours before the debate still seemed tentative and reserved, although Perry ended up making a pretty good impression on the attendees.
