Since Texas Gov. Rick Perry entered the race nearly two months ago, the presidential campaign of the GOP's presumptive front-runner has imploded, Jamelle Bouie writes in a blog entry at the American Prospect, and the Republican Party is scrambling to find a replacement. The obvious choice is Mitt Romney.
It's no exaggeration to say that the last few days have been terrible for Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential aspirations. On Saturday, The Washington Post ran a story on a ranch Perry used to entertain guests in the early days of his political career. Its name? "Ni**erhead." And while Perry insists that the name is an offensive one "that has no place in the modern world," he has done little to change the title in his decades of ownership. For anyone in public life, owning a "Ni**erhead" ranch would be a huge problem for their political future. For Perry — a white Southerner and governor of a state where vestiges of Jim Crow live on — it's potentially disastrous …
And of course, this all comes on top of Perry's disastrous performance at the Republican presidential debate in Florida two weeks ago, where he took fire from all sides for his outspoken support of a Texas program that allows the children of undocumented immigrants to attend college while paying in-state tuition. In defending his record, he attacked his opponents as "heartless" and alienated the large majority of Republicans who oppose programs for undocumented immigrants.
Read Jamelle Bouie's entire blog entry at the American Prospect.