The 10 Dumbest Things Rick Perry Said on the Trail

The following article originally appeared on the Grio.

After finishing poorly in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Republican governor Rick Perry is dropping out of the 2012 race. Perry's candidacy was frequently overshadowed by his own gaffes and malapropisms. Let's go on a trip down memory lane from Ni**erhead to "oops."

10. New Hampshire caucuses: Rick Perry must have still been reeling from his loss in the Iowa caucuses, because while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary he insisted that state was holding a caucus as well.

9. South Carolina “at war” with the federal government: In an attempt to rally conservatives in South Carolina to his cause he claimed the state was "at war" with the government, while defending the state's controversial voter ID laws. Turns out South Carolinians don't like the idea of secession as much as he does.

8. Mixed up Iran and Iraq: If you want to be president you should probably know what countries you are and aren't at war with. Just a thought.

7. Couldn’t remember the date of the election: Talk about not playing to win. How can people feel confident about voting for you when you're not even sure what date the election is?

6. Couldn’t remember the voting age: Not that Rick Perry was exactly appealing to young voters anyway -- but he should probably also have known what the legal voting age is.

5. Drunkish appearance at speech: We may never know what Rick Perry was "on" during this oddball speech to the conservative group Cornerstone Action in New Hampshire. But it did provide lots of laughs for late night comics.

4. Montemayor: "Montemayor?" Perry said, struggling to name one of the nine Supreme Court justices. He went on to blast the court as "eight unelected and frankly unaccountable judges."

3. Birtherism: Right around the time that just about everyone had moved on from the absurd "Obama is Kenyan" conspiracy theory (save Donald Trump),Rick Perry gave it a whirl to no avail.

2. Couldn’t remember three departments he’d eliminate: In what may go down as one of the worst debate performances of all time -- Perry struggled to complete his own premise and his candidacy ended in an "oops" instead of a bang.

1) Ni**erhead: Perry never found a convincing explanation for why his family owned and operated a hunting ranch has a racial slur for a name. This only helped cement the impression that he was unfit to lead the nation.