Whatever happened to the party of personal responsibility? CNN Reporter Sarah Murray wants everyone to know it wasn't really his fault. It was just that his wife wanted him to run so very much that he jumped in before he was ready.
Stock excuse and not news. My real reason for even writing about this isn't Rick or Anita Perry. It's reporter Sarah Murray, and the familiar tone she takes when writing about a 2016 Republican hopeful. The bias oozes out of this article like spilled crude oil on a beach.
In this passage, note the the first name references that are not in quotes.
"Rick is absolutely the guy that you want to have a beer with, but he's so much more than that. He's prepared now," Anita said. "I want people to really give him a second look."
Rick kicked off his first presidential bid in 2011 with six weeks of preparation, and he vaulted to the top of the polls. Things quickly unraveled.
He hadn't fully recovered from an elective back surgery, was in pain and didn't get much sleep. As a result, he couldn't campaign as aggressively as he wanted to. He made errors like the infamous "oops" moment on the debate stage when he forgot one of the government agencies he wanted to eliminate.
"He will tell you he was arrogant at that time," Anita said. A former nurse, both she and her husband underestimated how severely his back surgery would impact him. "I had a health care background. I should've realized he wasn't ready and prepared health-wise, but I didn't," she said.
The campaign's attempts to clean up the mess seemed only to amplify their problems. They brought in new consultants from Washington and pushed out some of Rick's longtime advisers. At one point, the campaign released an ad where Rick voiced his opposition to gay people openly serving in the military. It flopped. To this day, it has fewer than 30,000 likes on YouTube and more than 800,000 dislikes. Stories about staff infighting began to leak to the press.
"The campaign was a disaster," said Dave Carney, Rick's top strategist for his 2012 bid who was sidelined by the time that ad came out. He isn't involved this time around.
"He's an excellent retail politician. He's really passionate. He's a very positive, optimistic guy," Carney said. Still, "it's really difficult to reintroduce yourself when you've had such a spectacular failure."
That is not going to stop Rick from trying.
The article goes on to talk about how "Rick" was still recovering from back surgery, how they built an estate in Texas, how they have four dogs they treat like children and how one of those dogs is undergoing chemotherapy.
Everyone put on your sad face for the martyr line.
Instead of enjoying the new Round Top estate, Rick set up shop in Iowa.
How magnanimous of him.
Rick Perry will do whatever Rick Perry is going to do. But I'm far more disturbed by the tone of this article, which suggests this reporter is much too familiar with her subject to objectively report facts.
If you're going to write a fluff piece, at least dress it up and pretend it's not.
