Romney Is Breathing A Sigh Of Relief Tonight

From the clips I've seen of the latest of the traveling freak show, it appears that Perry-- whose lies about the Texas economic miracle have already been unraveling-- peaked a little early. He's done. Even Republican audiences aren't going to accept someone this obviously unqualified for a leadership position. The GOP is running a weird Mormon, like it or not. Or can Perry make a case that he was on meds from his back surgery and come charging back? I doubt it. As GOP operative David Frum put it yesterday:

There was no Texas miracle, from the point of view of the people who constituted the population of Texas back in 2007... Mitt Romney finally has his answer the next time Rick Perry attacks him for Massachusetts poor jobs ranking in the early part of the 2000s.

“The numbers show, Governor, that your economic policy was great at creating jobs-- for Mexico.”

After the debate, Frank Luntz's focus group declared that Romney was the unambiguous winner-- and Perry, yes, despite the endorsement from Opus Dei Governor Sam Brownback earlier today, the unambiguous loser. It became more than a little clear that Perry is in way out of his depth-- even among this crowd of gray flannel raving lunatics. Romney even turned the flip-flopper sobriquet back on him.

If Obama's team was counting on riding a Perry nomination to a second term, they better start worrying.


UPDATE

The reviews are in and they're pretty uniform: Perry lost big. He doesn't have much attention span and little patience for people questioning him. He's a classic my-way-or-the-highway bully, perfect for Texas Republicans, but unsuitable for America.

Standing next to Romney yet again, Perry showed himself to be less well-prepared and not as good on his feet.

And for a guy that needs to convince the GOP faithful that he’s electable and could stand toe-to-toe with President Obama, he’s still got plenty of work to do.

There are a lot more debates left, and that could either be a very good thing for Perry or a very bad thing.

Right wing operative Erick Erickson seemed ready to slit his wrists: "Good Lord," he wrote, "this was the worst debate I think I’ve ever watched... Rick Perry was a train wreck in this debate. He flubbed his response on Romney flip-flopping. He got the first question tonight and stumbled. Good grief. Romney did so much better than Perry. So much better. But I still cannot believe these candidates have pulled their punches on Romneycare. He’s getting a free pass on it. But his answers on so many questions, while smoothly delivered, were Democrat like. The winner is Herman Cain."