Bud Kennedy: Trump is ‘nonsense,’ but Perry should ‘take an IQ test’: Is this politics or wrestling?
SMU Political Science Prof. Matthew Wilson talks about former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's verbal attack on fellow presidential candidate Donald Trumph.
By Bud Kennedy
Donald Trump has achieved the impossible.
He made reporters call Rick Perry smart.
Until a few weeks ago, that would have seemed as unlikely as a 10-foot alligator swimming under the North Main Street bridge.
Now that a monster surfaced, Perry is looked to as the 2016 Republican field’s wise old trapper.
That was no fake headline Thursday in The Washington Post: “Rick Perry just savaged Donald Trump. That’s smart.”
While other candidates ignore Trump or play up to his voters, Perry criticized the celebrity billionaire Thursday as offering “not conservatism — Trump-ism — a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense.” . . .
But Southern Methodist University associate professor Matthew Wilson, a watcher of conservative voters, advised Perry and other candidates to stay safely away from danger.
“Trump has no chance,” Wilson wrote. “He does nothing but damage … taking time and media attention away from serious candidates and gratuitously alienating Latino voters.”
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