Can someone explain to me why no one supported Rick Perry?

You're going to have to help me with this one, you "true conservatives". Without making it about anyone who is doing well in the race, let's just consider the case for Rick Perry for a second. For 14 years, he was the very successful governor of one of the nation's biggest and reddest states - the one that consistently turns in the strongest economic performance of any state.

---

I've quoted from this link before but it's worth repeating:

In 2001 he was lucky to inherit a relatively prosperous state. Texas’s chief economic advantages include its lack of personal and corporate income taxes. It’s also a right-to-work state, which has weakened labor unions. Yet Mr. Perry deserves credit for growing this political endowment. In 2003 the state capped damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits at $250,000, which has helped cut providers’ insurance premiums by nearly half. This has attracted more doctors to the Lone Star State to accommodate increasing patient demand. In 2005 Mr. Perry signed a workers compensation reform that has helped slash business insurance premium rates by half. A 2011 “loser pays” tort reform has reduced the cost of business by warding off frivolous lawsuits. The Tax Foundation ranks Texas’s business climate tenth best, and the state’s growth spurt vindicates the Perry formula of low taxes and a light regulatory touch. Between 2000 and 2010, Texas gained a net 781,542 domestic migrants—second only to Florida—while California lost 1.9 million, according to the Manhattan Institute. Last year Texas boasted the three fastest-growing counties with populations above 250,000 (Fort Bend, Montgomery and Williamson). Between January 2011 and 2015, Texas had the third-highest job growth in the country at 12.5%, after North Dakota (22.3%) and Utah (13.9%). That compares to 10.5% in Florida, 6.2% in Ohio, 6.1% in Wisconsin and 4% in New Jersey. During Mr. Perry’s tenure, Texas created more than three of every 10 new jobs in the U.S. The only states that experienced faster economic growth between 2000 and 2013 were Alaska, Wyoming and North Dakota.

That's not just a good record. That's a phenomenal record. It's exactly what America needs. And yet Perry got so little support he had to stop paying his campaign staff weeks ago, and on Friday he "suspended" his campaign, which for all intents and purposes means it's over: I understand the field is crowded, but that's not stopping certain candidates from getting upwards of 30 percent support. There still has to be a reason Republican primary electorate is rejecting some candidates in favor of others. So tell me, what's the objection to Rick Perry? Is there some sort of conservative apostasy in his record that I'm not aware of? I know there was a bit of crony capitalism or "picking winners and losers" going on with state economic development incentives, but show me a state where that doesn't happen. Was he squishy on immigration? Taxes? Abortion? Law and order? How? Is it that you're worried another Texas governor gets pained as George W. Bush 2.0, and you think that's a political loser? Are you still fixated on the time he had that brain freeze during a debate and couldn't remember the third cabinet-level department he would eliminate? Or is it some other "gaffe" that bothers you? I know a guy who went off on him a couple weeks ago for saying "a stopped clock is right once a day" when of course it's right twice a day, as this is supposed to be proof I guess that Perry is just a blundertastic goof machine. Or is it that you think he's run a lackluster campaign? And if so, please tell me everything you know about what he's done on the campaign trail. (Also, please explain why you think this obviates the facts offered above about his record and what that tells you about the type of president he would likely be.) My concern, when a guy like Perry can't get any traction whatsoever, is that Republican voters are not taking a serious enough approach to this race. I understand the allure of "outsiders" who are not tainted by association with the political establishment, but ultimately the person who's elected is going to have to govern, and at that point becomes not only part of the political establishment but the head of it. You don't have any interest in someone who has a 14-year track record of doing that exceedingly well and very conservatively in one of the nation's biggest states? Really? You're going to need to explain that one to me.

---