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" It was fun watching Governor Rick Perry of Texas go from juggernaut to running joke in the space of what seemed like 11 minutes last year. When Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll, proving that her campaign was better at moving white people from one place to another on buses than the other campaigns were, thereby qualifying The Girl With The Faraway Eyes to be CEO of an Indian casino, the Republicans immediately spun their eyes to the two-fisted, varmint-pluggin&amp;#039; son of the sod from Paint Creek. Then, of course, he got into the race, behaved in the debates like a basset hound on Quaaludes, expressed a modicum of compassion for brown people whose papers might not be in order, and proceeded to sink like a stone. What I didn&amp;#039;t anticipate was that, in the course of demolishing himself as a national figure in the party, Perry was cooperating in the general ruination of his political career. His disapproval rating stands at 51 percent, a number considerably fattened by a 68 percent disapproval among independent voters, assuming (as always) that such critters really exist. (&amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m independent because Rick Perry is a big looooozeeer!&amp;quot; has to be in there somewhere.) The disapproval tracks perfectly among Hispanic voters, which is notable because one of Perry&amp;#039;s alleged strengths as a candidate was that he was a Republican governor who didn&amp;#039;t play to the cheap seats on immigration. (Now, of course, everyone&amp;#039;s decided that&amp;#039;s the way to go.) There may have been louder detonations of a promising candidate in recent years, but I&amp;#039;m hard-pressed to remember a more spectacular one. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17281/rick-perry-end-of-political-career-012913/>