Mientras Mitt y Newt riñen, Perry se mantiene al acecho

John Heilemann:

On December 14, the Texas governor will begin an epic, fourteen-day, 44-city bus tour of Iowa that will take him into every corner of the state. At the same time, Perry’s own team and the pro-Perry Make Us Great Again super-PAC have spent more than $5 million on TV ads in Iowa, more than any other candidate’s combined forces—though that supremacy may soon be challenged by the Romney campaign and its main super-PAC, which just made a $3.1 million ad buy there.

That Perry is going all-out in the caucuses is hardly a surprise; if he finishes in fourth place, where he currently stands in the polls, or worse, his candidacy will be all but over. What’s startling is that Perry, with his well-deserved reputation for slashing at his opponents’ jugulars, has wielded the blade against Gingrich or Romney in only one ad, instead running soft-focus positive spots about himself and his faith (and, of course, inveighing against gay soldiers and Obama’s supposed “war on religion”). But there is a method to this apparent madness: a calculation by Perry’s people that, if Romney and Gingrich go nuclear on each other, the governor might profit from the fallout, appealing to Iowan voters turned off by all the negativity. A long shot? Sure. But it could happen—and if it does, it will be Gingrich who suffers far more than Romney, as some hard-right voters shift to Perry.