"Avivar las llamas"

Para Mark McKinnon, uno de los mejores consultores de comunicación del país, la clave de todas las campañas es la intensidad (que se lo pregunten a Pawlenty, dice) y concretamente en 2012 cree que la clave puede estar en la intensidad negativa de Obama que conducirá a las urnas un voto hostil.

Por esa razón considera que la alta intensidad positiva de Rick Perry en la base republicana, en comparación con Romney, y su habilidad para "avivar las llamas" puede ser una enorme ventaja para el Gobernador de Texas siempre que el fuego no se le descontrole.

(...) There is no question who his real opponent is in the battle of ideas: President Obama. And he is taking the fight to him on jobs and the economy, saying: “I hope I’m President Obama’s worst nightmare. He’s the real problem here. It’s his policies. It’s his EPA administrator. It’s his people that he’s put in place that are strangling America with their regulations, with their debt. And Americans have had enough.” Perry is calling for a moratorium on all new regulations “to get America working again.”

While brash, Perry is a skilled retail politician adept at striking populist chords among the masses. Charming and disarming on his first few days out on the trail, he is proving he can work a room of voters like no others currently in the GOP race. And though he does not back down when challenged by the media, Perry has admitted he was wrong on two decisions in Texas, seen as venal sins by some conservatives: his support for a Trans-Texas Corridor that involved private contractors, eminent domain, and tolls, and an opt-out rather than opt-in mandate for an HPV vaccine for young girls. “Here’s what I learned,” Perry explained when challenged on the campaign trail in Iowa. “When you get too far out in front of the parade they will let you know ... I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen.” Unusual for politician to admit a mistake, and then to learn from it.

(...) It does feel like 1980 all over again. Malaise may mar the sitting president’s reelection plans, and Perry may play Ronald Reagan to Romney's George H.W. Bush to Obama’s Jimmy Carter.

There is a fire raging within the base of the GOP, and Rick Perry knows how to fan the flames, as he did with his “treasonous” remarks Monday about the Fed. The key will be to see whether he has the discipline and a modicum of moderation to keep the blaze from getting out of control and burning down the GOP house on the long road to the general election. (...)