Rick Perry

I do not have any confidence that Rick Perry will be the reigning Republican candidate when primaries come around. He has flubbed on national television-Perry actually forgot his own opinion during a debate and paused, looking very confused. A candidate that appears to be stupid, if only for a moment, is typically not very popular or respected by the populace. However, George Bush managed to not only be elected to the presidency once, but twice, and also came off as the one of the most ignorant and unintelligent men in the twenty-first century. Perhaps if Perry is able to play off any future flubs as mistakes of the "common man" and work the everyman angle that Bush did, he will be successful and more widely liked.  Coupled with the "regular person" appeal, his loyalty to staunch conservative values could be very attractive to Republican voters, for Perry seems like one of the more sane of the group of current candidates.
Nevertheless, Perry was involved in a scandal which included a rock at his family's vacation home that was inscribed with a racial slur, and minorities and those who have no tolerance for racism will almost certainly be very much put off by this discovery. Overall, I do not see him being successful.