The Potential Return of Rick Perry

The man who proved that you can too be too dumb to win the Republican presidential nomination is making noises about running again. He, first of all, wishes to note that he’s not some kind of crude Okie:

Appearing on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Mr. Perry defended his state’s use of the death penalty as “appropriate and humane,” even after the bungled execution in Oklahoma last week.

So how humane is Texas’s death penalty? I would like to ask Cameron Todd Willingham. Except that he was killed by the state of Texas. Even though the state had essentially no evidence that he committed the crime for which he was accused.

At any rate, one thing I think should be emphasized about Perry is that his ineptitude wasn’t just about one case of forgetting some gibberish about what federal agencies he’d like to eliminate. He was unable to keep even the express even the most obvious attack lines against Romney in a remotely coherent manner (apologies for the title):

Almost anything can happen in a Republican race; Romney could have only run if he was effectively running unopposed, and he for all intents and purposes was. But it would take a much bigger run of luck for Perry to be a serious candidate.

Relatedly, Kilgore is excellent on the “next in line” myth.