Every sport has a saying that goes roughly like this, "After X games, you are who you're going to be." In the NBA, which has an 82-game season, the saying often takes this form: "After 20 games, you are who you're going to be."
This means that if you're a .500 team after 20 games, you're probably looking at a .500 season, give or take a few digits here or there.
Well, the next Republican debate is on September 22. I would argue that the Rick Perry we see at that debate is more or less the Rick Perry we're going to be living with for a while.
Why do I say that? By now, Perry knows (or should know) the areas where he's vulnerable:
-- Social Security
-- Gardasil vaccinations for young girls in Texas (amazingly enough)
-- immigration (specifically, tuition and border fence issues)
-- foreign policy (Perry is still speaking in vague generalities here)
In the next 10 days--that is, before he takes the debate stage again--Perry ought to be working on sharp, thoughtful responses in each of these areas. If he shows up on September 22 and is still getting stuck rather than parrying, we'll have to assume that: (a) he didn't think it was important to improve his answers; or (b) he thought it was important, but he simply wasn't capable of doing any better.
If either of those things is true, then the Perry we got last night is probably the Perry we're going to have to live with.
Footnote: And if that's the case, I'm voting for Mitt Romney.
Anklenote: Yes, it is possible for grown-ups to improve at things like this. (Think of how much better Sarah Palin was in the debate with Joe Biden than she was in her early interviews.) But these debates are like anything else in life; if you want to get better, you have to work at it.
(Incidentally, Rick Perry hasn't been working at it in Texas. He didn't debate his Democratic opponent in his last gubernatorial campaign, and he had only two debates with GOP challengers. So, that's two debates in four years, covering a much narrower set of issues than he's facing on the national level.)
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