Rick Perry

[Danzig]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...michigan_.html

ROCHESTER, Mich.—Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. Born in a South Carolina hotel ballroom on Aug. 13, it died on the campus of Oakland University on Nov. 9, with CNBC’s debate moderators unable to avert their eyes. The cause of death: self-inflicted injury, brought on by amnesia.

The Perry campaign had always been sickly. But for a little while no one wanted to diagnose it. A Politico front-pager about whether Perry was “dumb”? Cheap “name-calling,” according to Fox News. The candidate calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme?” If you didn’t like that, you had a problem with straight talk and honesty and, probably, cojones. Reporters dutifully filed stories about Perry’s donor-friendly contracting, about the bogusness of his “Texas miracle.” The campaign pretended that the media didn’t exist.