How Did We Get Here? 9: Another also-ran

Let's get this guy out of the way quickly because he is boring and stupid and I hate his face, I hate his glasses, and I hate that we are going to see him every campaign season until he dies.

Rick Perry, ladies and gentlemen.

Position: Governor of Texas. 2000-2015, now just runs for president professionally I guess, oh also lost in week three of Dancing With the Stars

Announcement Date: June 4, 2015

Withdrew: September 11, 2015

Accomplishments: Tenth longest running congressman in American history, Top Cowboy of Texas award, 2001.
   
He broke? Oh yeah, he broke

Rick Perry is basically Texas personified, he loves guns, doesn't hate immigrants quite as much as you'd think, really hates gay people, and lusts for death penalty.

There is nothing subtle or hidden about this guy, he's pretty straightforward in all his beliefs, which are almost uniformly awful, he's a fiscal conservative of the worst kind, slashing funding for many programs to the point that for Texas to maintain its own roads it had to borrow money, the state is in debt to the tune of billions of dollars at this point.

He is a biblical literalist, which is of course impossible to actually be consistent about, he believes creationism should be taught alongside evolution in schools, but his small government beliefs come to the rescue here because he also feels that the State shouldn't dictate what teachers teach, so... ehh?

Big fan of the death penalty, as previously mentioned, 250 plus people executed during his time as governor, he also refused to exempt the mentally handicapped from death penalty cases.

Hates the gays, as previously mentioned, fought bitterly against any equality rulings from the Supreme Court, was exceptionally mad when Texas' archaic anti-sodomy law was struck down as a result of Lawrence V Texas.
Weirdly obsessed with the Boy Scouts keeping their ban on homosexuality alive, talks about it a lot.

The usual anti big government crap, Obamacare and so on.

His campaign was blessedly the shortest, as he isn't very charismatic and didn't have too much in the way of funding, plus his campaign spent money at four times the rate it received it. He limped along for about two debates and dropped out before the primaries started. He then endorsed Ted Cruz, and then Donald Trump, so I guess the hard fought primary didn't lead to any hard feelings, that or he has no morals whatsoever.

For some reason he keeps finding people to support him though, he ran with somewhat more success in 2012, or at least with more stamina in the campaign, and signs point to him being able to do so again in 2020, at age 66 we hopefully will only have to put up with two to three more runs, but by then I am sure Texas will have spewed out some other asshole. I mean it already gave us Ted Cruz.