Why Perry will win, from a Perry insider, paraphrasing Perry’s consultant: Republicans haven’t nominated a presidential candidate from the northeast since Dewey in ’48.  (Nixon lived in New York and practiced law there but was always identified with California. Eisenhower wasn’t really associated with any particular part of the country, although he was president of Columbia University.) They won’t nominated a northeasterner (in other words, Romney) this time. I’m inclined to buy that Perry will be the GOP nominee, but the general election is a different matter. Perry’s extremism will be a problem in a general, unless (if Perry’s good fortune holds) Obama is so far gone by election day that he is unelectable.