The Texas governor ignored New Hampshire, preferring instead to bet the house on the south. But will his gamble pay off?
Rick Perry does not look like a dead man walking. The Texas governor, and ardent fan of the death penalty in his home state, strode into a packed diner in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina, beaming as confidently as ever and shaking hands ferociously with as many people as he could.
Accompanied by his wife, Anita, Perry touted his 11 years of running Texas as being the perfect primer to become the Republican challenger to Barack Obama. In his deep Texan drawl he turned on a full display of his folksy charm.
"I care about you," he told the audience sitting in Kinch's Diner just off Rock Hill's Main Street. "I care about the American people. I care about the next generation."
But there is a big question of whether anyone really cares about Perry anymore. Perry did badly in Iowa, coming in fifth. He then virtually ignored New Hampshire – he wasn't even in the state on voting day – which returned the favour by virtually ignoring him.
Now he has staked everything on South Carolina. His allies would call it a comeback. Others might say it's a last stand. "South Carolina is the firewall for him. He has to do stunningly well," said Professor Scott Huffmon, a political scientist at South Carolina's Winthrop University.
Given the dire state of Perry's campaign performance so far, it is increasingly hard to recall the fervour that greeted his entry into the race in August. He immediately catapulted to the front of the field. But a withering examination of his record and background soon ate away at his poll numbers. That was compounded by a series of poor debate performances that culminated in his famous "Oops!" moment, when he forgot which government departments he had promised to cut.
After Iowa, it seemed Perry might quit the race, and he went back to Texas before deciding to join the fight in South Carolina. That surprised some experts, but sources close to the Perry campaign say it was local backers in South Carolina who were highly influential in persuading him to stay in and have a tilt at a revival in the state.
Yet Perry's backers here are upfront about his mistakes. In Rock Hill, local South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney introduced Perry to voters with a short speech. "He is not the person you saw for 45 seconds in a debate," Mulvaney insisted. And indeed Perry then gave a persuasively charming and effective performance in front of the assembled crowd.
Unlike the debates, where Perry was often criticised for being lacklustre and unsure of himself, the governor was fluent and funny. He frequently prompted rounds of applause and laughter. At a later meeting, in a gated community in nearby Fort Mills, Perry cracked wise almost like a stand-up comedian. "I grew up in a house that did not have indoor plumbing. So I am a true conservative when it comes to water," he told the mostly retiree audience to loud guffaws. Later Perry brandished a thick pen to the crowd when he was talking about cutting spending. "Yes, it is a Sharpie. We call that a veto pen back in Texas," he quipped.
In the flesh Perry mixed hardcore conservative attacks on Obama with a folksy blend of religious-orientated patter. He posed as an outsider politician whose record in Texas creating jobs and cutting budgets could be replicated on a national level. "My wife loves me. Jesus loves me and my children love me. After that it is all gravy, I guess. But I am not going to Washington DC to be loved. I am going to serve my country," he said.
In theory such talk should go down a treat with South Carolina Republicans desperate for someone to emerge as the main conservative opponent to the more moderate frontrunner Mitt Romney. The state has a powerful social conservative constituency who should appreciate Perry's faith and his tough stance on issues like abortion and gay marriage. Some experts think that his dream of using South Carolina to get back into the race is not just a fantasy. "Rick Perry is going to do better than most people expect here," said Professor Mark Tompkins, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina.
But no one thinks it will be easy. In Fort Mill retired couple Wanda and Ron Thompson came to see Perry speak. Despite wearing a Perry sticker on his lapel ("out of respect to his visit") Ron Thompson confessed to having most sympathy for former House speaker Newt Gingrich. "I like [Perry] but I think there are other people in the race," he said.
His wife, though, offered more hope for Perry's strategists. "The more I listen to him, the better I like him," said Wanda Thompson.
It is going to be an uphill battle. After he finished speaking, the first question Perry faced was from someone asking him if he would be the eventual winner's running mate. Perry said he would much rather just go back to Texas. Back in Kinch's Dinner in Rock Hill it was easy to find sceptical voices, even among those who enjoyed Perry's appearance. Bob Crandall, an ex-newspaper executive in the area, said he too was a Gingrich supporter, though he had not yet firmly made up his mind. He liked Perry, but did not see him winning the state. "He's struggling, but that does not mean he might not be the man for the job," Crandall said.
In recent days Perry has tried to strike a populist tone, building on the anti-Romney stance taken by Gingrich. Both men are now pounding away at Romney's record at Bain Capital, which bought and restructured firms, often causing job losses, including several companies in South Carolina. Perry has dubbed Romney "a vulture" and slammed him as being a symbol of corruption and greed on Wall Street. Perry claims he can win the state blending that hard-hitting critique of Romney with his more natural conservatism. "I am not here to come in second," he told reporters asking him about his chances of emerging victorious in South Carolina.
But would that mean he would end his campaign and go back to Texas if he did not win? Perry declined to be drawn. "You'll just have to wait until January 21. That's like trying to call the game in the first quarter and we just took the kick off," Perry said.
But, most experts agree, Perry needs to pull off something remarkable here if he is to stay relevant in the race. Otherwise the final whistle will almost certainly soon blow on Rick Perry's 2012 ambitions to be president.