Polls show that voters care about jobs and the economy, first and foremost. Perry can point to his record as Texas governor, one of the few states with a record of job creation during the recession. Whether he's responsible for that record is a debatable point, but politically, it is a clear winner. Second on the list is concern over government spending, and Perry's book is a virtual treatise against excessive federal spending.

Perry will have to address his views on entitlements, but his vulnerabilities on that front pale in comparison to Obama's vulnerabilities on the economy. Only 35 percent of senior citizens approve of the president's job performance, according to Gallup, one of his worst-performing demographic groups. With seniors so down on the president, it's hard to see Perry's book quote being a game-changer.

For a case study, look at two special elections that are coming up this month, one in a solidly-Democratic New York City district and one in a rural, Republican-leaning district in Nevada. In both elections, the Democratic candidates have lambasted the Republican nominees for supporting entitlement cuts and holding extreme views on the social safety net. In the decidedly liberal confines of Queens and Brooklyn, the Republican candidate has actually embraced such controversial views, and even said he opposed a bill that provided benefits to victims of 9/11.

The Democrats' attacks haven't resonated. Instead, dissatisfaction with Obama is so great that the Republican candidate in Nevada is poised to win in a landslide, and the Democrat is barely getting help from the national party. And in the special election race to replace former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner in New York, polls from both sides show a close race.

If the historic 2010 midterms demonstrated anything, it was a massive pushback against Obama's big government policies--the stimulus and health care reform in particular. Obama saw his 2008 election as a mandate for a more activist government, and his policies created a resistance that is still churning today. Grassroots insurgencies don't happen in a vacuum. But Democrats are still grasping at polls that show that the tea party is unpopular, even though the antigovernment sentiment that fueled the movement is as powerful as ever. The White House misread the tea party movement from the start, and it seems to be misreading it to this day.

Image credit: Jim Cole/AP

Just look at the president's decision last Friday to suspend antismog standards, something that goes against the environmental record his administration has proudly stood for. This was a profound concession: Obama is either conceding that excessive regulation can hamper economic growth, or he's acknowledging the political pitfalls of an activist government. And if the political pendulum has swung so much to the right that even Obama is cutting back environmental protection for the hope of economic growth, it suggests that Perry's antigovernment views aren't limited to cranky conservatives.