Cain is right, it was Perry, but the GOP bosses will tell Cain to blame liberals

[Enrique]

they'll tell him, yeah everyone knows it was Rick, and yeah it was a low blow, but you have to suck it up and take one for the team. Rick knocked you out of the contest, it's now him vs. Romney. You're gone. No, it's not fair, but we can't have you pointing fingers at a fellow Republican over this, we need you to blame "the Left" and "the liberal media" and of course we're going to want you to play the race card against them, so get out there and play it.

And if Rick beats Mitt, we're going to need you to help Rick out. He has a little race problem, so we're going to need you there to show people that black people like him.

[glowing]

1. I'm not sure anyone will take too kindly to Perry.

He is a stupider version of Bush, who clearly enjoys drinking alcohol and acting like a frat boy still.

[Pirate Smile]

7. Perry has already damaged himself severely with Republicans.

Perry Plays Nice
Why Rick Perry won’t attack Mitt Romney or any other candidates anytime soon.

When Rick Perry brought on a new team of advisers, the assumption was that he was about to initiate a scorched-earth campaign against anemic front-runner Mitt Romney. These advisers, who had helped Gov. Rick Scott win a rough-and-tumble race in Florida, were supposed to know how to play nasty. They would surely pummel Romney because time is short, no one has been able to lay a glove on him, and there is such ample opportunity. That might happen someday. But if the new Perry team is smart (and it is), it’s not going to go after Romney before repairing Perry's image first.

Perry's problem is within the Tea Party. In a CBS poll five weeks ago, 30 percent of those affiliated with the Tea Party said they supported Perry. Now only 7 percent do. That number is not going to be improved by exposing the wires in Romney’s control panel. Those voters are not looking at Romney. They are looking for the best candidate to carry their values forward. Right now that candidate is Herman Cain.
OK: So Perry's new team of vicious junkyard dogs will go after Cain, right? (Please, let’s have some fighting here, because we're all bored!) No, they're not going to go after Cain either. That's not going to win hearts back. To replace Cain, Perry will have to do two things: Let voters come to the conclusion Cain is wonderful but not ready to be president, and rebuild Perry as the alternative once voters are ready for a second look at him.

-snip-
When that moment comes, a candidate like Perry has to be ready. Right now he's got some work to do. In that same focus group, when attendees were asked to compare Perry to a character from fifth grade, they said "bully." (If only they'd meant it the way Teddy Roosevelt did.)
To repair his image, Perry has to remind voters why they liked him in the first place. He is a committed Christian, and he has a record he can point to in Texas that shows commitment to conservative principles. Yes, he has blemishes—but so do all the candidates. According to NBC’s Carrie Dann, when Perry was able to explain his record on immigration to a Tea Party voter in New Hampshire on Friday, he made the sale.

Now he just needs to repeat that. Negative ads will only get in the way, which is why Perry is running positive spots so far. This isn't to say that Perry won't keep up the “Mitt is a flip-flopper” attack. That would be malpractice. And Romney is helping. This week he was accused of flip-flopping on his support for the flat tax. It was a bogus charge. As if to fill the vacuum of fresh flip-flopping material, he wiggled and waffled on his support for Ohio's Issue 2. He said he was unfamiliar and didn't want to get involved, though he had previously offered support, which he then renewed a day after he said he wouldn't get involved. (The most implausible moment of this embarrassing series of events was when Romney said he wasn't familiar with the local issue. Debate Boy, who has aced nearly every question in the forums and who on the stump asks detailed questions about Iowa corn farming and cattle feedlots, was fuzzy on the deets? If he says so.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/rick_perry_campaign_why_he_won_t_attack_mitt_romney_or_herman_ca.html

[Maccagirl]

2. Cain has raised over 1M since this broke

Maybe he's playing the bully card-but at the moment I don't see him being knocked out just yet. We'll just have to see how this plays out.

[provis99]

3. I thought they blamed Romney?

or was it Limbaugh who blamed Perry? or Romney?

Its a Republican circular firing squad, so to me it doesn't matter who did it, as long as they turn on each other.

[Enrique]

4. Cain blamed Perry

Perry denied it, said Romney did it. :popcorn:

[Pirate Smile]

5. I like blaming Romney much better.

Alienating the conservative base from him even more is a plus. I'm not worried about Perry.

I think we should encourage the idea that Romney - who has the most organized, methodical and effective campaign of the Republican alternatives - leaked it and set up Perry to take the fall. This way he could damage both Cain and Perry.

Remember - in 1988, many thought Gephardt had hit Biden on plagiarism. But that was not true -- it was Dukakis.

A good oppo hit can damage two competitors.

I don't doubt Romney's campaign could do it - and he is the GOP candidate who I would most like to see hurt by the backlash. :)

[mindwalker_i]

6. If your past is rich

Blame yourself!