After a slight rewrite, my last blog item about Gov. Rick Perry’s piano playing was published Sunday as a column in the American-Statesman. Since then I’ve heard that Perry can also play the drums. Again, who knew?
The New Hampshire primary is today. Perry is polling only about 1 percent in New Hampshire, where he hasn’t campaigned all that hard. More importantly, he’s polling only 5 percent in South Carolina, where he will make his last stand when the state holds its primary Jan. 21.
Few appear to take Perry seriously anymore. He was a minor player in the two Republican debates this weekend in New Hampshire (even so, he created a stir and more ridicule for himself when he said he would send troops back to Iraq because Iran was poised to “move back in at literally the speed of light”). Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, guest Harold Ford, and correspondents Chuck Todd and David Gregory were talking about the New Hampshire primary. They mentioned Perry only once during the segment I saw, and it was to make fun of the poor guy. (Here’s video of the segment; the reference to Perry comes around the 8:30 mark.) Scarborough, the former Republican congressman from Florida, was the most mocking; Todd and Gregory had a good laugh at the governor’s expense.
Maybe voters in South Carolina will take Perry more seriously and give him a new look and make him the first anti-Mitt Romney candidate to experience a second surge in the polls. That’s the path out of Iowa and past New Hampshire Perry hopes he’s traveling. But unless things change dramatically in the next 10 days, the path he’s on is the path home.