The other storylines are spent: Newt Gingrich surging, Herman Cain maybe dropping out, Mitt Romney hanging in there, still, while being hated by his political party. But about our man Rick Perry? Sure, he's a terrible candidate who screws himself over each time he does anything in public. And his campaign's funding has mostly dried up, although he still has a modest stack of summer cash in the bank. How will he come back, even though he probably won't? It is a three-part strategy.

  • Reshuffle some deck chairs, hope that the new deck chairs somehow make him less of a moron. Perry has hired a new campaign manager and top strategist and shifted his previous top aide to focusing on New Hampshire, a state that Rick Perry will not win. The new top people, we guess, will be charged with tackling him on stage whenever he's saying something, at either a debate or a major speech that videocameras are filming. But what if that — literally tackling your candidate whenever he starts talking — is against the rules, or generally frowned upon by the public? Then it's not clear how new campaign strategists could help Rick Perry.
  • Bring in a famous anti-Mexican wingnut from Arizona to convince people that Rick Perry doesn't love all illegal immigrants. Rick Perry has won the coveted endorsement of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio! Arpaio's role is to convince the nuts that Rick Perry doesn't actually like Mexicans, even though he allows children of illegal immigrants in Texas to receive in-state college tuition. How's that working out?

  • But Alice Bury of Amherst, who said her grandchildren are considering attending college in Texas, told Perry she was troubled by what she views as "a double standard" for out of state students and illegal immigrants who would be eligible for in-state tuition. Perry defended that policy in a debate earlier this year by saying that Americans who would begrudge that benefit to children brought to the United States "by no fault of their own" didn't have a heart. [...]

  • After the event Bury she was surprised by Arpaio's endorsement of Perry and that his answer was unsatisfactory. "He did not appear to be open to rethinking [his policy]," said Bury, adding that Arpaio probably would agree with her view. "You don't give one group of people a break in tuition – I don't care who the group is – it's just not democracy."

  • Alice Bury of Amherst: She's just not convinced.
  • Ignore voters between 18 and 20 years old, tell other voters to vote on the wrong day. Amazing no one had thought of this yet: "At a town hall meeting at the Institute of Politics at New Hampshire's Saint Anselm's College Tuesday, Rick Perry asked that all of the college students in the crowd who will be 21 by Nov. 12 support his bid for the presidency." We think he got this mixed up with his plan to drink with some college students during the first Monday Night Football following next year's general election.

Well, the new plan checks out to us. Hang in there, fella!

[Image via AP]