Why Rick Perry stayed in the race -- and why he left

Aides to Rick Perry declined to pinpoint any one trigger for the Texas governor’s decision to bow out of the race, but Perry suggested in his remarks that he thought it was important for conservatives to coalesce behind one candidate at this critical juncture just before the South Carolina primary.

Many operatives had expected Perry to leave the Republican race after the Iowa caucuses, but despite his embarrassing fifth-place finish “he decided he had the organizational resources, the financial resources and the fire in the belly to move forward into South Carolina – recognizing that it was an uphill battle,” Perry advisor Ray Sullivan said.

After Iowa, Perry told aides that he didn’t want to look back on the 2012 contest and wonder what would have happened if he had decided to stay in the race through the Palmetto State. “We all recognized that it was a steep hill to climb coming out of Iowa. He had more fight in him and wanted to come here and try to make a stand,” Sullivan said. “It became clear yesterday to him that that wasn’t going to be fruitful in South Carolina.”

Perry’s South Carolina chairman, Katon Dawson, said the Texas governor “hit his stride two weeks ago, but we didn’t have enough time.”

Aides also acknowledged that Perry had spent nearly all of his resources in his final campaign push. Ads for his campaign were on heavy rotation as recently as Thursday morning on South Carolina television channels. (His campaign is not carrying any debt, aides said. They could not give an estimate of how much money Perry has raised to date.)

Perry’s advisors said his belief that Gingrich was the stronger candidate to captivate and rally the conservative base was an important element in his decision.

“He wanted to give our supporters and the voters here an option to vote for conservative candidates who have a greater likelihood of moving forward,” Sullivan said.

Perry’s remarks and his tone Thursday also reflected the concern in some sectors of the Republican Party that GOP front-runner Mitt Romney will not be able to generate the kind of enthusiasm among conservatives and evangelicals that they believe is needed to trounce Obama in November.

Dawson, former chairman of the state party who is remaining neutral for now, said “conservatives are going to have to make their mind up on who and what they are. Right now they are splintered in a bunch of groups.”

“You are going to have to create a wave of emotion to beat President Obama and that wave of emotion gets fired up by evangelicals, born again Christians and conservatives,” Dawson told reporters outside the room where Perry made his announcement. “I think the party is lacking the heat it’s going to take to beat Obama right now.”

Dawson said he has not seen that level of enthusiasm behind Romney’s candidacy: “He’s been campaigning for a long time — and maybe that’s why the heat’s not there. I mean, you can only keep ice in the glass so long before it starts melting.”

“This thing is fluid – 40% [of South Carolina voters] say they’re undecided or they’ll move,” Dawson said.

Dawson, who said he had received 19 pieces of mail since Wednesday (including some “very hard” mail from Ron Paul attacking former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum), was also concerned that the Republican race had now “dropped in the gutter.”

“It’s really going to drop in the gutter tonight and tomorrow,” Dawson said.