IS RICK PERRY THE INSTA-PALIN?

I keep thinking Rick Perry can make a comeback, but I'm looking at the crosstabs of the new Fox News poll (which, naturally, has Herman Cain in the lead nationally among GOP primary voters) and the numbers look pretty dire for Perry. It's not just that he's fourth in the GOP field, at 10%; it's that his favorable/unfavorable numbers are awful in the public at large -- 23% favorable, 44% unfavorable. (By contrast, Cain and Romney are both in positive territory.) What's more, Perry's numbers are abysmally low among key groups -- you'd think men, at least, might like his act, but he's at 26%/46% favorable/unfavorable with my gender. Independents? Even worse -- 18%/53%. (That alone might explain why folks like Karl Rove and Jennifer Rubin are trying to destroy his candidacy.) He's not even in positive territory among self-described conservatives (31%/36%), and he's barely in positive territory among Republicans (40%/33%; by contrast, Cain is at 54%/17% in his own party and Romney is at 60%/24%).

Perry seems to have very rapidly become what it took Sarah Palin a couple of years to become: someone Republicans shun because they perceive (correctly) that the person has become a national punch line, and doesn't do much to dispel that impression. So maybe he really has fallen too far to mount a comeback.