Rick Perry campaign plays blame game - Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman
“There has never been a more ineptly orchestrated, just unbelievably subpar campaign for President of the United States than this one,” said a senior Perry adviser.
Perry’s steep plunge from frontrunner to butt of jokes was chiefly the result of his own embarrassing verbal stumbles, most notably his insta-classic “oops” moment when he couldn’t recall the names of the cabinet departments he wants to eliminate.
Yet the view of the outsiders who took over Perry’s campaign is that the candidate was set up for failure by an insular group led by Dave Carney, the governor’s longtime political guru, which thought they could run a presidential campaign like a larger version of a gubernatorial race and didn’t take the basic steps needed to professionalize the operation until the candidate was already sinking.
“They put the campaign together like all the other Perry campaigns: raise a bunch of money, don’t worry about the [media coverage], don’t worry about debates and buy the race on TV,” said a top Perry official. “You have to be a total rube to think a race for president is the same as a race for governor.”