Another "Perrybot" Response

I was at work this morning when I saw Stacy McCain's bitch-slapping post to the "Perrybots" and I couldn't respond at the time because, well, I was at work. 

Stacy, it seems, is aggrieved because Rick Perry's campaign burned through $20 million in his failed campaign.  Stacy, who was all for Herman Cain, by the way, is now on the Rick Santorum bandwagon; he seems to be harboring some resentment about his current candidate's cash raising status:

Just ask yourselves, Perrybots, what might have been possible if some other candidate — any other candidate, perhaps one who could remember how to count to three – had an extra $20 million to spend here in Florida. But no, you spent months telling the rest of us that Rick Perry was The Only Conservative Who Could Beat Romney, an argument you didn’t hesitate to repeat as late as December, long after it was apparent that he wasn’t ready for prime time. And you still refuse to admit that you were misled, and helped mislead others, into jumping aboard that hopeless Bandwagon to Loserville.

I'm quite fond of Stacy and I have great respect for his Shoe Leather Reporting; I link him often and have hit his tip jar several times, but he's dead wrong on this one.  Rick Perry had every bit as much right to run as did Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, or anyone else for that matter.  If he burned through $20 million then it was his to burn.  And the people had just as much right to support Perry as Stacy does his candidates of choice.

Troglopundit refutes Stacy's logic:

One need not be a “Perrybot” to see the logical fallacy McCain is making. To wit: “if Rick Perry hadn’t entered the race, somebody else would have gotten that $20 million.”

I dunno what’s in that pile, but it smells.

Short answer: no, neither Rick Santorum, nor Herman Cain, nor Michelle Bachmann, nor Thaddeus McCotter would have received that $20 million. A small proportion of it, perhaps. I’m speculating, but it seems likely that other candidates would also have received some of it. Therefore whatever financial impact this fictional Perrylessness might have had would be distributive in nature, and thus zero.

Perry had several large contributors who were likely donating for the sole reason that they liked Perry and his record of success in Texas.   Heck, I even donated to Perry (not millions!) but I haven't donated to anyone else as of yet.  In this little microcosm, my small donation would not have ended up going to Santorum even if Perry had never run in the first place.  I'd have kept it.

The fisking of Stacy continues with Wyblog:

Hey, Stacy McCain is a kick-ass gonzo journalist and all. He Knows Things. I'm just a random Polack from New Jersey. But it occurs to me that Rick Perry, a guy who's actually won elections and governed from conservative principles, might have gotten more traction if a certain gonzo journalist hadn't taken a flyer on the likes of Herman Cain, and in the process misled a whole lotta other folks into buying a one-way ticket on the 9-9-9 Restraining Order Express. Cain wanted to be president alright, just not President of the United States. More like president of Hooters, if you get my drift. 

How much cash did Herman Cain suck out of the Santorum coffers?   How much early traction could Santorum have gained had Stacy not been on the Cain Train?

Adrienne chimes in:

Well, who's sucking up oxygen now? 

Michelle Malkin has thrown her support behind Santorum.  I understand her reasons.  I like Santorum, too.  But I also believe that he is not going to be the nominee.  Neither is Ron Paul.

I think that in the end the only one making any sense here is Smitty:

The candidates all suck: get over it. 

Amen.

Remember, when Perry got into the race he was viewed by many as the savior from this stinkin' field of RINOs we have now; he'd never lost an election and had a track record (while not perfect) of conservatism and job creation in Texas.  Why was it wrong to support that, pray tell?

It was much easier to support that than to support a guy who lost a re-election bid in his own state.

As it is, the process is working.  We don't like the candidates, but it's working.  Perry faltered and he failed.  I hate it, but it is the way it goes.  Newt says he's staying in.  Mitt is staying in. 

Krauthammer sees Missouri as Santorum's chance to make a stand (February 7):

I think [he's] staying in. I think the real sleeper event could be in Missouri. Missouri doesn’t have any delegates. It’s only a beauty contest. But Gingrich isn’t on the ballot. I think for Santorum, this is his great opportunity. He’d be essentially one-on-one with Romney.

If polls are to be believed, Republicans need to stop eating their own and start focusing on Obama.  As it is right now, we're handing him four more years.

None of our candidates are perfect.  In fact, Smitty is right - they stink.  All of 'em.  But in the end, blaming the "Perrybots" and continuing the blame game won't win back The Oval. 

Truth is, there's no real conservative in this race and in the end we're going to have to do the same thing we did in 2008.  Hold your nose and vote. 

Let's just hope we don't get the same result.