So it looks like the indications are that Rick Perry, former front-runner, last place finisher in the 2011 Republican Debate Tournament, is not hanging up his brush jacket yet. Despite his very melancholy nigh-concession last night, the Texas governor seems to be headed to South Carolina instead of back home to Austin.

The question is: Why?

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Mike Huckabee has not endorsed Rick Perry for president. On the contrary, there’s a long, rich record of Huckabee jabs at Perry.

Yet take a look at the new Rick Perry ad, “President of Honor,” aimed at the Iowa caucus-voters. The ad montages endorsements and testimonials from winners of the congressional medal of honor, artfully edited in ways to make you think that Gov. Perry must be almost sort of a war hero himself.

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The epic collapse of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Presidential campaign has been much-discussed with an emphasis on how this collapse affects his political future. This is to be expected, but a debacle like this will inevitably take down the fortunes of others.

I’m not talking about people like the staffers who left former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign for Perry’s campaign. That’s too obvious and they are professionals who made their political beds. I’m talking about the innocent victims of the Perry campaign’s decline.

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Today’s question is: will the Gingrich balloon deflate like all the previous Not Mitt balloons?

The answer is: yes of course–but given that these balloons take typically 6-8 weeks to shrivel, the impending Gingrich bust may not arrive soon enough to save Romney. No question though, it will arrive in time to freak out the Republican party.

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Newt Gingrich has a voluminous history of misdeeds as a public figure. But since he is now emerging as the consensus alternative to Mitt Romney, we should pause to appreciate how he is succeeding where others have failed in auditioning for that role.

I write this not as a Newt Gingrich fan, but in grudging admission that despite the mistakes he has made, his opponents have done worse.

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In my column for the National Post, I explain why Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are the best contenders in the GOP presidential field:

I’m looking for two chief things in a candidate for 2012:

1) The temperament, judgment, deftness and largeness of spirit required in the presidential office; and

2) The creativity and intellect to respond to the global economic crisis – a crisis threatening to actually get worse if (or when) the euro implodes.

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Serious question: Why didn’t the Bush administration give Rick Santorum some kind of consolation prize after his defeat in 2006?

Here’s a two-term senator, brought down by no mistake of his own, who had performed well in Congress and stood by the party leadership when called upon–eg, endorsing Arlen Specter in 2004.

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It was November 1994. I was in Greece at the Temple of Delphi. As I walked the grounds of the ancient pagan oracle I saw a news kiosk. Approaching it, I spied the International Herald Tribune. Across its pages was the monumental news that after 50 years the Republicans had taken the House!

I vaulted into the air with a yell. Finding no drachmas on me (in that pre-Euro age) I cajoled my liberal democratic friend to give me the means to buy the paper. He hesitated. “Well, ok if we abide by a 24 hour gloat period and that’s it.”

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It wasn’t $300,000 that Freddie Mac paid Gingrich for his work supposedly as a non-lobbyist “historian.” It was between $1.6 million and $1.8 million.

Gingrich says that all he did for that money was tell Freddie that their business model was “insane.” Anybody find that believeable?

Kevin Drum states it:

A few months ago I was pretty much rooting for a Perry or a Bachmann to win the GOP nomination because I figured (a) they’d lose big in the general election, and (b) their loss might push the Republican Party back toward the center sooner than otherwise. But it’s just too obvious now that Obama is genuinely vulnerable and someone in the Republican field might well be our next president. That’s why I’m now mostly hoping that the GOP base comes to its senses, holds its collective nose, and just nominates the Mittster. On a day-to-day basis, I suspect Romney would govern about as conservatively as any of the others. But in an emergency, he’s the only one who seems pretty certain of responding in a non-catastrophic way.