Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man — Cameron Todd Willingham — and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”
Rick Perry is the latest GOP savior and it’s voters like the one above who will be picking the GOP nominee. Maybe the economy is so bad that people won’t care about Perry’s secessionist dabbling, his drive to execute an innocent man (remember he dissolved the arson investigation board that was about to exonerate Willingham) or his crazy preachers. It just looks like the only people who can win the GOP nomination can’t win a general election.