How Perry could win

Jill Lawrence:

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Late entrants rarely live up to their advance billing, as anticipation gives way to the reality of a Fred Thompson or, so far this year, a Huntsman. But many of the party VIPs making pilgrimages to Austin see Perry as different.

“I would say he’s a game-changer,” says Barry Wynn, a veteran fundraiser and former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. Wynn, who attended a meeting with Perry in Austin last week, says he is charismatic and has “a remarkable record of creating jobs.” Perry has also proven he can raise money, Wynn told me, and “there is a perception that he can win”—not just the nomination but the White House.

Perry, who raised $40 million for his 2010 campaign, has been adamant about not launching a White House bid unless he can generate the resources to sustain it. Outlook good, as the Magic 8-Ball would say. Wynn is personally keeping his options open until September, but he says 90 percent of the two dozen fundraisers at his meeting with Perry last week “jumped aboard” right then and there. More money people from around the country were headed to Austin for a similar meeting Thursday. Next week, a delegation of leading New Hampshire Republicans is due in Texas to encourage Perry to run.

David Carney, Perry’s chief strategist, declined to discuss who is coming to see Perry. “We have meetings every day,” he said. “We’re fully engaged to try to figure this out. It’s not a public process.” Carney did say that some of the meetings include supporters of other candidates in the race. It is an opportunity for them to visit with Perry and find out more about him. “There are no pledge sheets,” Carney said. “We’re not asking them for a commitment.”

The most grassroots activity on Perry’s behalf appears to be in Iowa, where an independent “527” committee (tax-exempt fundraising group) is trying to raise his profile. Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, says he ran into Perry committee representatives at an ice cream social at the Adair County Fair on Sunday near Des Moines, and again at a fundraiser Tuesday night in Osceola County, in northwest Iowa near the Minnesota border.

Scheffler says Perry called him three weeks ago “and indicated he was thinking about it very, very seriously.” He’d be shocked if Perry doesn’t run, given the lack of a true frontrunner in the caucuses that open the primary season, says Scheffler. “He’s the one who could potentially mix the race up.”

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There is more.

Perry is different from President Bush. He is more conservative and more likely to cut spending and federal regulations. He is also pretty clever. He recently accused PresiDENT Obama of turning US astronauts into hitch hikers, with the end of the shuttle program. Obama can expect more such digs if Perry gets into the race.