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Just to recap, in less than two months Rick Perry has:
- Suggested that maybe Ben Bernanke should be lynched.
- Declined to back off his contention that Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.
- Called climate change a “contrived phony mess” that was cooked up by scientists who have “manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.”
- Pissed off the conservative base by defending his decision to (in Michele Bachmann’s immortal words) give “government injections” to “innocent little 12-year-old girls.” Said Perry condescendingly: “What I don’t get is what parents don’t understand about an opt out.”
- Further pissed off the conservative base by suggesting that if you disagree with his policy on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, “I don’t think you have a heart.”
- Mangled a prepackaged debate attack on Mitt Romney so badly, and then followed up with a statement on Pakistan so inscrutable, that even his supporters started to wonder if he has a three-digit IQ.
- Proposed that US troops should be used to fight Mexican drug lords. In Mexico.
- Had to defend himself against revelations that his family leases a hunting spot called “Niggerhead.”
I’m putting this up because you can’t truly grasp the full scope of Perry’s train wreck campaign unless you see the whole list in one place. It’s really pretty stupendous. Has any top-tier presidential candidate in history ever imploded quite this quickly?
