Another one bites the dust

Well, well, it seems that Gov. Perry looks to be going the way of Trump and Bachmann. A new WP/ABC News poll says that his support among Republicans has been cut in half.

The culprit?

Perry’s support for the Texas policy of providing in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants appears to be a significant problem in the GOP race. About two-thirds of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they are less likely to vote for a candidate who backs such a policy. Among tea party supporters, nearly eight in 10 say this position is a negative factor.

Of course Republicans are going to be much more concerned about this than they are about the name of the ranch where he goes to hunt. Because when it comes to "the Brown in American," this is the kind of thing they want to hear:



Here's how Jonathan Chait describes the ad.

This is Mitt Romney's new video attacking Rick Perry for a rare and politically damaging bout of humanity toward the children of illegal immigrants. Note that it begins with the assumption that anything Democrats favor must be bad — a primitive but common assumption in primary politics — and then proceeds to the assumption that anything Mexican President Vicente Fox likes must be bad. Fox is quoted at length praising Perry, and his praise stands on its own as an indictment — anything that a Mexican would like must be wrong.

So what do you do as a Party when your recent hero has shown too much humanity toward the children of undocumented workers and your leader is someone you just can't trust because he's flip flopped on every issue? You wait breathlessly while Gov. Christie decides whether or not he'll throw his hat in the ring. You know, the Gov. who says that being in this country without documentation is not a crime.

To a rational party, this would not make any sense. But rational is definitely not something anyone has ever accused the Republicans of being.

What I expect is that if Christie gets in - Romney's team will make all kinds of hay about things like this - feeding the quest for racist purity among the tea baggers. Of course, no matter what he does, those folks aren't flocking to him - he's still only at about 25% in the polling on Republican candidates. So perhaps he's simply counting on being the last one standing in this ongoing quest for a tea bagging hero.