On Thursday in Charleston, South Carolina, the same city in which he announced his candidacy, Rick Perry delivered the news that has been inevitable for three months: his candidacy is over.
And what a run it was.
In the beginning, when the Perry-for-President rumors hit a fever pitch, it seemed Republicans had found their ideal non-Romney candidate.
He was a great campaigner and a proven conservative, someone with a strong record who could mount a real challenge to President Obama.
None of that turned out to be true.
He was gradually exposed as a pay-for-play politician who used government as a piggy bank for his donors. Perry's previous support for a mandatory HPV vaccine, and less-than-insane immigration policy, did him in with the new Tea Party-infused Republican Party. He could never correct the image of himself as less-than-pure because he has always acted out of political expediency, not principle.
Culminating with his now-legendary "oops" moment at a September debate, Rick Perry made a mockery of himself and our great state. He never recovered from the American people's realization that he is an utter fool, utterly unprepared for the presidency.
Perry became a non-factor in the Republican primary even before the voting began. When it did, he lost desperately in Iowa (5th) and even worse in New Hampshire (5th with 0.7% of the vote).
Though he deemed South Carolina a state of "real Republicans" where his candidacy would turn around, Perry couldn't inspire any new support there and dropped out two days before the primary.
As a political story alone, Perry's candidacy is a sad one. But as the story of a politician as disastrous for Texas as this one, it is an uplifting one.
The Perry campaign couldn't find a strategy that would cover up their candidate's fatal flaws. The real Rick Perry seemed to teem over the edge of his artifice, no matter what tack he took.
"Keep in mind that almost all of our nominees in the last 50 years have been on their second attempt at the White House, so Republican voters tend to like experienced candidates that they've seen for a long time," Sullivan said, also noting that "we don't have term limits in Texas."
Not a chance. Perry disqualified himself from another viable run by accidentally showing America who he really is: a shell of a politician who stands for nothing but self-promotion.
And if he does run for governor again, he may well lose. In the last poll of Texas primary voters, Perry placed third. And it's not because Republicans want their governor back - he was far ahead in Texas months ago.
Attorney General Greg Abbott wants to be governor and has a serious war chest, preparing him to mount a serious challenge against Perry.
The best path forward for Perry would be to finish his term quietly. In the 2013 Legislative session, he should completely change course and prioritize issues like public education and clean water so that Texas can support its recent population growth and prepare for the future. Afterwards, he should release his death grip on state government by retiring from public life.
But we can't expect him to do the right thing. He's Rick Perry, bound to continue his awful record leading our state. As Texas progressives, it is our responsibility to fight him at every turn.
At least we can say this definitively, and very happily: there will never be a President Rick Perry.
It's been a great experience writing "On Perry's Trail" and hearing back from BOR's insightful readers. The complete archive is here.
With less than a week until the South Carolina primary, Rick Perry is struggling to gain any traction in South Carolina. Meanwhile, an influential group of social conservatives endorsed Rick Santorum, delivering another blow to Perry's hypothetical chances.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Last Throes
Today, the Washington Post published an excellent piece about Perry's efforts in South Carolina, "lingering in some strange place between the last throes of death and the dim possibility of revival."
The piece follows Perry on a day of Palmetto State retail politicking, painting a portrait of an enfeebled campaign with little direction or energy.
Perry continues to dwindle down in the single digits in South Carolina polls, currently averaging 5.7% support. That's only 5% more support than he received in the New Hampshire primary, and shows no upward movement.
NATIONAL
Unendorsed
When he entered the campaign, Perry seemed like social conservatives' dream. A devout Christian, he had just held a massive religious rally, "The Response," in Texas. He liked talking about social issues on the stump.
Since then, with his incredible gaffes and too-obvious hatred on social issues (see his "Strong" ad), Perry has lost that evangelical support.
Last week, a group of hugely influential social conservatives met in Brenham, Texas to choose a candidate to rally behind. They chose Rick Santorum.
"There emerged a strong consensus around Rick Santorum as the preferred candidate of this group," president of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins said. He said the group was concerned about Perry's ability to win even though the governor "fit the bill" when it came to analyzing his record and positions on conservative issues.
Even these evangelicals, the most delusional Republicans about where most Americans stand on social issues, don't believe Governor Oops has a prayer in the general election.
Virginia Failure
A Virginia judge will not allow Perry to appear on the state's primary ballot because he did not receive the required amount of signatures.
The decision "disenfranchises" the states voters, Joe Nixon, Perry's lead counsel, said Friday.
No, Perry disenfranchised himself by failing to receive the required signatures. That is plain to see.
Bain Bashing
Perry is hitting Romney hard for being a "vulture capitalist" while CEO of Bain Capital, listlessly shutting down businesses to turn a profit for himself.
Sean Hannity challenged Perry, accusing him of "sounding like Occupy Wall Street," but Perry has held firm to his line of attack.
"This is not something that we knew wasn't coming up," Perry said on ABC's "This Week." "It's better to be talking about it here in January in South Carolina than it is in September and October with a nominee. So if it's a fatal flaw, then we need to talk about it now."
Rick Perry talking about fatal flaws could not be more ironic.
But if he hoped this line of attack would boost his candidacy, it simply isn't working. Only Newt Gingrich is seriously contesting Romney in South Carolina.
There is simply no longer a place for Perry in the imaginations of Republican voters.
.07%. That's the percentage of New Hampshire Republican voters who supported Perry in yesterday's primary.
That's a total of 1,766 voters.
The Texas College Democrats are aiming to match that number in likes on their Facebook page by the South Carolina primary on January 21st. Go help them out!
In New Hampshire last night, there were ramifications from Mitt Romney's win, Ron Paul's close-ish second, and Huntsman's mini-surge...but none of that horse race news is really related to the Perry campaign anymore.
Our governor is operating in his own, false political reality in which he still has a prayer of winning the nomination.
Going South Carolina
Rick Perry is staking his campaign on appealing to "real Republicans" in South Carolina...where he polls at 5%.
Is he so determined to win that he can't see his campaign's obvious hopelessness?
Perry doesn't qualify for CNN's January 19th South Carolina debate.
According to CNN's qualification rules, a candidate must get at least 4th place in either Iowa or New Hampshire, or get 7% support in at least three national Republican or three South Carolina primary polls released in January.
Rick Perry placed 5th in Iowa and 6th in New Hampshire. Perry receives 7% of the vote in only one of the national polls released in January.
Apparently, CNN has waived these rules to allow Perry to participate.
Maybe CNN thinks that being denied from a debate would simply be too great of an embarrassment for Perry.
Could it be any more embarrassing than...everything Rick Perry is doing right now? Let alone his entire campaign?
Since reassessing his candidacy in a mere twelve hours after Iowa, Rick Perry is poised to finish last in New Hampshire and then lose again in South Carolina. Voters would be justified rejecting Perry on the quality of his reassessment alone.
New Hampshire
ABC Debate: Criminally Stupid
On Saturday night, Rick Perry was in New Hampshire for the ABC debate.
More than anything, the debate showed just how irrelevant Perry has become. He was barely included in the conversation, speaking only a few times.
When he did speak, Perry was more articulate than he has been in previous debates. More energetic, too. Most media outlets pointed this out.
When the Iraq War was brought to a close, two-thirds of Americans opposed it. Even if Perry meant a supervisory role for troops, as his spokesman claimed he did after the debate, it amounts to the same thing: a violation of the Status of Forces Agreement first negotiated between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government and a re-invasion of Iraq.
"If tonight's debate has accomplished nothing else, it has demonstrated, beyond any last slim thread of doubt, that Texas Governor Rick Perry is criminally stupid. He would, he said, send American troops back into Iraq, today, so as to rebuff Iranian influence there -- which arose, of course, because we went in to begin with...That's not just stupid. It's criminally stupid."
Carpenter is dead on: the logic of Perry's argument is dangerous and without any merit. He shot himself in the foot again by espousing this ridiculous position.
NBC-Facebook Debate: Look Ma, No Hands
On Sunday morning, the Republicans took the same stage again for the NBC-Facebook debate.
While his rivals hurled insults at Romney, Perry sought to repair his "oops" moment from early in fall, something he hasn't been able to do over the course of three months.
He then turned to his rivals, held up three fingers, and smiled as if he expected them, and the audience, to give him a treat.
Though the Perry campaign is probably happy their candidate could remember three of his "principled views," it was actually an utterly embarrassing moment.
The "oops" moment was so consequential because of the seemingly endless string of gaffes that came after it that showed America just how little mental heft Perry has.
NATIONAL: Perry Won't Give Up or Do Well
Perry arrived in South Carolina on Sunday night, where he hopes "real Republicans" will form a groundswell under his candidacy and get him back in this race.
Bold prediction: Not. A. Chance.
Perry is averaging 1% in New Hampshire polls. On Tuesday night, when he finishes last in the primary, he'll look even weaker than he did after Iowa. Remember, Perry campaigned for months in New Hampshire - he's no Santorum, who campaigned in Iowa exclusively.
"When I got a target in my sight, I don't give up," Perry said at The Beacon Drive-In in Spartanburg. "I've never quit a day in my life in the face of adversity, and I'm not just about to quit on the future of America. I'm going to stay in this race and stay in this fight."
The reason Mitt Romney continues to lead in every foreseeable primary state is that his strategy is working. By offending the least people with his polled-for-the-primaries views and rhetoric, he comes across as the most sane candidate in the primary.
And Republicans seem to be preferring that "sanity" in 2012.
Last night, Perry received 10.3% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, finishing in fifth place. It was Perry's first-ever election loss.
During his speech to supporters, he announced that he was going back to Texas to "reassess" his path forward.
In a strangely quick turnaround, Perry tweeted from his personal Twitter account this morning: "Here we come South Carolina!!!"
He attached a photo of himself jogging near a lake, wearing Texas A&M running shorts and showing a thumbs-up.
5th Place Perry Blames Iowa
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Perry said of his choice to go to South Carolina: "This was not a hard decision."
"This is a quirky place and a quirky process to say the least," Perry said of Iowa, noting that he believed Democrats were voting in the Iowa caucuses. "We're going to go into, you know, places where they have actual primaries and there are going to be real Republicans voting."
Instead of accepting his defeat and vowing to fight harder in the next contest, Perry has decided to lash out against Iowa. This type of bitterness is a very weak sign from a candidate who was clearly rejected by "real Republicans" last night.
Let's not forget that Perry devoted most of his campaign to this "quirky place" without "real Republicans," largely banking on an impressive finish in Iowa to propel forward his candidacy.
Staff Shaky
Despite Perry's strongheadedness with reporters this morning, his campaign staff seems uncertain of the status of their candidacy.
The Texas Tribune reports that Perry's staff "appeared largely dumbfounded about the Texas governor's plans" this morning.
"We are all scrambling," one staffer wrote in a text message.
Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor "never left the race," but acknowledged that plans were "all very fluid."
How strange.
Did losing his first election send Perry into an ego trip so powerful that he made a rash decision less than 12 hours after his "reassessment" began?
Is Perry communicating with his staff anymore?
Does Perry have any real plan?
As Perry's campaign staffed bickered publicly in the last few weeks, we knew the Perry campaign was falling apart. Last night, Perry's dismal fifth place finish seemed an obvious end to the campaign.
This morning, Perry made it clear: the campaign will go on, more confused and with less potential than ever before.
A day before the Iowa caucuses, the Perry campaign is dealing with consistently low poll numbers and a publicly bickering campaign staff.
IOWA: Hoping Against Hope
Perry's chances in Iowa are extremely dim.
He's in a battle for fourth place with Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich. Most experts don't think the winner of fourth place will get any significant momentum from the results.
On Saturday, Perry announced that after Iowa, he will skip New Hampshire entirely and head for South Carolina.
Clearly, Perry wants social conservatives in Iowa, and then South Carolina, to carry him to the nomination.
That hope seems hopeless. Perry has never been able to recover from his endless string of gaffes, among any demographic.
Heads up to Governor Good Hair: for a campaign turnaround, the gaffes must end first.
"Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don't have to buy from a foreign source," Perry said, adding that buying so much energy from foreign countries is "not good policy, it's not good politics and frankly it's un-American."
Apparently, in Rick Perry's mind, Canada is part of the United States. And, shockingly, Perry doesn't seem to know about oil markets, but instead believes incorrectly that oil is purchased directly from countries.
Tonight, in the appropriately named Perry, Iowa, some of Perry's top supporters will hold a caucus-eve rally. Perry will appear alongside his family, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and businessman Steve Forbes.
NATIONAL
Strategy
On Thursday, Perry released an ad criticizing his opponents for their high salaries ($174,000) as congressional representatives. He forgot one small detail: he collects $240,000 annually from the taxpayers of Texas.
Perry's hoping voters don't know this, and consider him a legitimate outsider.
On Friday, following news of Rick Santorum's surge in Iowa, Perry released a radio ad attacking Santorum for his voting record.
The ad mimics a game show, asking questions of contestants like "Which Republican running for president voted for the bridge to nowhere?" and "Who personally demanded more that $1 billion in earmarks to his sixteen years in Congress?"
Each time the announcer proclaims the answer: "Rick Santorum!"
Today, Steve Forbes sent out an email to Rick Perry's email list encouraging "conservatives" to rally behind Perry so that there is a viable alternative to Mitt Romney.
Unfortunately for the Perry campaign, their candidate squandered months of opportunity to establish himself as that alternative.
Bickering
On Saturday, POLITICO released a revelatory story in which senior Perry advisers came forward about the inner workings of Perry's dysfunctional campaign.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, several members of Perry's team talked about a "behind-the-scenes power struggle that took place largely between a group of the governor's longtime advisers and a new cadre of consultants brought on this fall."
The old cadre of advisers, the much-praised "Eggheads" who designed Perry's Texas success, wanted to run the presidential campaign like a larger gubernatorial campaign. The newer advisers wanted to run a full-scale presidential campaign, complete with a complex ground game, supporter lists, full opposition research and thorough debate prep sessions.
That battle lasted for months.
"In the end, the outsiders won out - and ever since have marginalized Perry's longtime chief strategist [Dave Carney] while crafting a new strategy in which the Texan has portrayed himself as a political outsider and culture warrior," POLITICO explains.
"There has never been a more ineptly orchestrated, just unbelievably subpar campaign for president of the United States than this one," said a senior Perry adviser.
In a short interview with POLITICO's Mike Allen, Perry challenged the story and demanded names from the reporter. Perry appeared very testy and defensive while offering the following weak defense: "I'm telling you every time I'm around my staff they're getting along fine."
After Iowa
This morning in Sioux City, Iowa, Perry promised to stay in the race for the long haul.
Perry predicted that "every day that goes by, we're going to get stronger," and he called himself the only GOP candidate who could combine an outsider message with, "more importantly," an "ability to raise the money to go all the way through."
Last week, the Perry campaign failed to garner enough signatures to appear on the Virginia primary ballot.
On Tuesday, the campaign filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutional validity of Virginia's ballot access rules.
"Gov. Perry greatly respects the citizens and history of the Commonwealth of Virginia and believes Virginia Republicans should have greater access to vote for one of the several candidates for President of the United States," Perry campaign communications director Ray Sullivan said in an email to reporters.
Rick Perry says he hates frivolous lawsuits, but he clearly feels they're justified when they benefit him. Note that the lawsuit is about the constitutionality of Virginia's laws, not the question of whether the Perry campaign collected 10,000 valid signatures from registered voters.
Perry said he had undergone a "transformation" after viewing the film The Gift of Life, narrated by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and talking with Rebecca Kiessling, who was conceived during a rape. "She looked me in the eye and said, 'I am the product of a rape,' and she said, 'My life has worth,'" Perry said.
During a teleconference later in the night with anti-choice group Personhood USA, Perry reiterated his change of beliefs and elaborated on why he decided to sign a pledge to oppose all abortions: "As I signed that document I will suggest to you that, all I can say to you, was that God was working out of my heart."
One more time: "God was working out of my heart."
Rick Perry is clearly determined to be just as awful - and castigated - as George W. Bush. But here's the main difference: Perry doesn't seem able to climb the ladder of evangelicalism out of a GOP primary.
NATIONAL: Security Frivolity
Perry's massive security detail is draining the pockets of Texas taxpayers.
According to an investigative report by the Texas Tribune that came out Sunday, Rick Perry has charged Texans up to $400,000 a month for security since launching his presidential bid.
This massive security detail at taxpayer expense is for a "fiscal conservative" who has never shown evidence that this amount of security is necessary.
Even before he announced his candidacy, Perry said it was appropriate for the Texas Department of Public Safety to pay for his security and called any criticism of his government-provided protection a "diversion."
Perry claimed that Texans would benefit from his travels.
"I'm going to be promoting Texas," Perry said in July as he was beginning to travel the country. "I'm going to be traveling to places where the Texas story needs to be told, and we will tell it."
No, Governor Good Hair, you've been promoting yourself. In doing so, you've embarrassed your state with repeated, unacceptable gaffes in which you show just how little you're prepared for the presidency.
More than that, you've represented Texas as a bigoted, small-minded place. Your hateful anti-gay views have made you reviled across the country, and Texas's reputation is suffering.
Most of us can't wait for the day when you no longer have access to state funds. You've mishandled them greatly.
On Wednesday, pro-Perry Super PAC "Make Us Great Again" released "Newsreel," an attack ad against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
Much like Perry's own ad released last week, "Newsreel" highlights Gingrich's ethics violations and Romney's history of support abortion rights and mandated health insurance.
The ad calls Perry the "true conservative" Republicans can trust.
Yeah, Rick Perry's really trustworthy. This coming from a Super PAC headed bY a former Perry chief of staff with whom the Perry campaign appears to have illegally coordinated on ad footage earlier this year.
VIRGINIA: No Show
On Friday, news broke that the Perry campaign failed to gather the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the Virginia Republican primary ballot.
This is the latest in the epic string of gaffes Perry has committed in the campaign.
TEXAS: Two-Step
On the campaign trail, Perry rails against dependence on the government and scorns public programs meant to support Americans' pocketbooks.
But Perry doesn't believe in any of that when it's his own pocketbook at stake.
Through a loophole in the rules of the Texas Employee Retirement System, Perry will collect his annual salary of $150,000 from being governor and his new annual pension benefits of $92,000 a year.
The problem isn't Perry's "retirement" as such - it's perfectly legal, though strange.
The problem is that in his personal life, Perry reaps the benefits of public pension systems, but goes around the country tearing them down and tying them to a "Ponzi scheme."
IOWA: Dreaming
As Perry's Iowa bus tour rolls forward (though he's back in Texas for the holidays), he's saying just about anything hokey to pick up some desperately needed momentum.
Later in the day at a nationally televised teleconference from Iowa, Perry said his desire to improve the economy was "very Biblically based."
He went on to say, "I prayed right before I walked over here that I wouldn't make any mistakes that my friends in the media would be able to put on television. I pray a lot because I'm prone to make a lot of mistakes."
Really - you pray because you're prone to making political gaffes?
Perry clearly hopes that his inability to go more than 48 hours without embarrassing himself and our state comes off as presidential to the average Iowan Republican voter.
"His pitch these days is humbler, that of a flawed but earnest candidate - a Christian and a military man who is not a grandfather but hopes to be someday. A public servant who fears deeply for the nation's future," the Washington Post explains.
Voters clearly aren't buying it. In Iowa polling, Perry hovers around 10 percent with evangelical novelty candidate Rick Santorum.
Between last Wednesday and the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd, Rick Perry will be on a 44-city bus tour of the Hawkeye State. Here's a full rundown of Perry's planned stops.
In the last two weeks of the campaign, Perry's final charge against Mitt Romney is that he's an arrogantly rich automaton.
At last week's debate, Perry implied that Romney was a pandering "robot." Later in the debate, Perry goaded Romney into offering Perry a $10,000 bet that he never supported a national health care mandate.
Last Monday, Perry tried to capitalize on Romney's casual bet: "For most Iowans, having an extra 10,000 (dollars) that you would throw down on a bet seems very out of the ordinary," Perry told reporters.
The latest Iowa polls prove Perry's strategy isn't working. Even if Mitt Romney isn't Iowans' first choice (right now, it's Ron Paul), Rick Perry places fourth - at best.
"My back is great, I'm back running again for the last six weeks so I think part of the reason you've seen a somewhat different candidate on the debates is that my health is, really both physically and mentally, just really back in the game from the standpoint you have a fusion on your back and it takes you a while to get back on your game," he said.
In fact, Perry's "oops" moment happened less than six weeks ago. However, let's grant Perry that his back pain made him forget one of the key tenets of his campaign.
Then, according to Perry's claim, the awful gaffes he's made since "oops" were all him at his healthiest - from "the country Solynda" to misstating how many judges are on the Supreme Court.
Dumb at Debate
At Thursday's debate in Sioux City, Perry called for a reinstatement of the Monroe Doctrine to fight terrorism, "just like we did in the '60s against Cuba."
The Monroe Doctrine was an early 19th century American policy to defend against European intervention in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere...during James Monroe's presidency. Not during the 1960's, and not with Cuba.
Perry's ignorance knows no bounds, for it knows nothing.
Perry said there were doubters of Tim Tebow, too, who said he didn't have the right "throwing mechanisms" and "wasn't going to be a very good NFL quarterback."
Well, Perry said, "I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses."
Perry also said that he is confident in his ability to challenge President Obama in the general election.
"We will get it on," Perry said.
Ok, Governor Good Hair, don't pull a Gingrinch. Republican voters clearly don't want to see you face President Obama - they're sure you'll lose desperately.
On Saturday, Rick Perry debated his opponents in ABC's Iowa caucuses debate. He put forward a solid performance, returning to his core (false) economic message and making no gaffes.
He even goaded Mitt Romney into making a serious misstep.
Perry accused Romney of flip-flopping on individual mandate health insurance.
An annoyed Romney challenged, "Rick, I'll tell you what, 10,000 bucks?" Romney said, ruining his years of effort to paint himself as an average guy. "$10,000 bet?"
This would seem an opportune time for Perry to capitalize on Romney's mistake and show why, despite his coverage for the past two months, he's still the best candidate for the GOP.
As the Texas Tribune reports, Perry is trying to do just that in Iowa, where he's focusing his socially conservative message.
He hopes to catch a final wave of primary voter discontent with Romney and Gingrich and make a McCain-like resurgence.
But Perry has already dirtied his reputation, likely beyond repair. At a small rally Sunday in Ames, Iowa, Perry was greeted by hecklers who criticized his anti-gay ad. Watch here.
Even for GOP voters for whom bigotry and stupidity is not a problem, it's clear that Perry is politically toxic, now more than ever.
Terrible Follow-Up
Later in the day, Perry made up a country and continued his uninterrupted string of devastating gaffes.
While attempting to coherently criticize President Obama's handling of solar energy company Solyndra, Perry said:
"No greater example of it than this administration sending millions of dollars into the solar industry, and we lost that money. I want to say it was over $500 million that went to the country Solynda."
Perry got both the name of the company wrong and completely made up a country.
Do Perry's advisers try to prepare him with any information about the world around him? Or does he refuse their advice because his ego is just that big? Or he's that disinterested in facts?
The Perry campaign has been using the same excuse for months now to explain away Perry's apparent lack of necessary knowledge to be president: voters want a straight-shooter, not a slick debater.
But Rick Perry can't shoot straight any better than he can debate. He simply does not understand, or apparently care to understand, the world around him. That is clearly not what voters are looking for, especially in the post-Bush years.
