The Midday Brief: Nov. 14, 2011

Your afternoon reading:

• "Sure, Rick Perry blew his chance to reboot his campaign last week and spent much of the weekend doing damage control – through humor and a quiet debate performance on Saturday night. Yes, some donors are fleeing from him. And his poll numbers have sunk even lower. But don’t expect Perry to bow out of the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination any time soon. In fact, there is still a path for him to win. Here are five reasons why Perry will stay in the race and survive his debate gaffe." — Five Reasons Rick Perry Will Survive…For Now, Time

• "And yet, with that unorthodox approach to winning the nomination, Newt Gingrich is getting a second look from GOP voters. There’s clear movement in the polls: A new Public Policy Polling survey out Monday has him in first place, hitting 28 percent. He’s a close second behind Mitt Romney in both Monday’s CNN/ORC International poll, which showed him at 22 percent, and the McClatchy-Marist poll out Friday, which showed him at 19 percent. Those numbers follow a trajectory of Gingrich surging as Herman Cain slips in many recent polls — even those in which he’s not doing as well have him in third, like the new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll out Monday that has him tied for third with Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 14 percent." — Newt Gingrich’s 2012 surge picks up steam, Politico

• "One of the big wild cards in the New Hampshire primary is the Union Leader endorsement -- a powerful, market-moving conservative seal of approval that hasn't yet been dispensed, and that seems unlikely to end up with Mitt Romney.  So it's nice for Rick Perry to see the paper's editorial page taking a lenient attitude toward his Michigan debate fumble, and praising him for his willingness to cut federal departments instead of blasting him for failing to remember exactly which ones." — Union Leader goes easy on Perry, Politico

New in The Texas Tribune:

• "The U.S. Senate campaign of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has made its first TV ad buy, according to Hotline On Call. The political tipsheet says the campaign will spend six figures to air the ad beginning tomorrow on cable systems statewide and DirectTV in Dallas and Houston." — Video: First Dewhurst Ad Airs This Week
  

• "Voters clearly want good schools and nice roads and low taxes. It's a political and policy question straight out of a business textbook: What's the right balance of price and quality?" — Memo to Voters: There's No Free Lunch

• "For this week's version of our nonscientific survey of political and government insiders in Texas, we asked about Rick Perry's chances — before and after 'Oops.'" — Inside Intelligence: About that Memory Lapse...