Perry vs. Romney open thread *UPDATED*

Back in 2007 and 2008, I pretty strongly supported Romney.  If you check out my Mitt Romney category of posts, you’ll see myriad posts in which I praised his economic acumen and his character.  It looks as if I’ll be dusting those posts off again.  When Perry came on the scene, I liked his fire, his American pride, and his small government attitude.  His fire, though, seems to have turned into painful self-immolation and, unless he miraculously improves his showing in a few days, I don’t seem him going anywhere.

Romney had three problems going into 2008:  Romney Care, his Mormonism (which I don’t mind, but which worries or is offensive to many Americans, both religious and non-religious), and his slightly plastic demeanor.  He has only one problem now:  Romney Care.  Obama is so bad, most conservatives and many independents will willingly overlook both his faith and his demeanor.  Romney Care, however, is a problem.  As I said back in 2008, though, there is no perfect candidate.  Romney was better than McCain back then, and he’s definitely better than Obama now.

As I’ve mentioned before in my posts, my support for one primary candidate or another is purely hypothetical.  By the time the primaries reach California, it’s all over anyway (and, with California’s new open primary law, thank God for that, ’cause I really don’t need to have the Democrats selecting my Republican candidate).

What say you?

UPDATE:  Since I didn’t watch the debate, I have no idea if James Taranto’s statement is accurate, but I just love the imagery (emphasis mine):

Rick Perry was awful in last night’s debate. Just awful. The swaggering Texas governor kept scrapping with the chipper Mitt Romney, and he kept losing. It was like watching Donny Osmond dominate John Wayne.

There’s still room for Perry to grow and move, and as the Duchess of Austin said in her comment, he’s still got much stronger conservative chops than Mitt with regard to everything except illegal aliens.  Both are better than McCain was in 2008.  (I still haven’t grasp how McCain got the lock on the Republican nomination back then, but that’s another story entirely.)