Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman will not appear on the Virginia ballot in their March 6 primary, after their legal teams bungled their ballot challenge after waiting too long. “They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions,” U.S. District Judge John Gibney wrote.

Sometimes some stories are just too good to be true. Earlier today, the Los Angeles Times posted a write up of a campaign stop that Rick Perry made at the South Carolina restaurant. At the bottom of the article, the reporter made a brief reference to Perry accidentally trying to call on a mannequin during [...]

Texas governor Rick Perry is doubling down as he prepares for the upcoming South Carolina primary in the wake of his less than stellar showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire. As part of his media blitz, the presidential hopeful paid a visit to Savannah, GA’s WTKS, where he spoke with radio host Bill Edwards about Those Three Departments.

On his radio program Wednesday, Rush Limabugh slammed Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry over his criticism of Mitt Romney‘s work at Bain Capital, which the Texas Governor deemed “vulture capitalism.” “I’m sorry, folks, that is indefensible!” Limbaugh exclaimed.

Rick Perry had an indisputably rough night in New Hampshire. In fact, tonight, his eyes were entirely on South Carolina, and, on Hannity tonight, he didn’t even bother to talk about New Hampshire. But his night got worse as Sean Hannity challenged him on his claims that Mitt Romney was a “vulture capitalist”– going so far as to claim that Perry sounded like a member of Occupy Wall Street.

Meet Dick Perry. The Texas Governor? No, that’s Rick. Tucson-based musician Al “Dick” Perry has earned a highly-visible fourth position on the Arizona Republican Primary ballot. The better-known Perry will appear much further down the list.

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton takes a rather unique approach to finding his ideal candidate, borrowing a page from none other than Dr. Frankenstein. Here are the bits and pieces he’d take from several of the GOP candidates (Notably absent? Huntsman’s everything.) to form his version of the ideal Republican presidential candidate:

A South Carolina woman greeted Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry with a hearty helping of Southern hospitality when she informed him that it’s “good to see someone as homophobic and racist as you” as the two smiled for a picture together.

Good morning! Do you like Republican debates but lament that they are always so late at night? Well get ready for Sunday morning’s Meet the Press/Union Leader/Facebook debate, and watch along with us starting at 9 AM Eastern time.

A week and a candidate removed from Iowa, and less than a week away from the make-or-break state of New Hampshire, six of the remaining Republican candidates (alas, Buddy Roemer was excluded yet again!) are reconvening at St. Anselm College for another debate. This debate, hosted by ABC News, Yahoo! News and WMUR-TV airs tonight on ABC at 9PM ET, but you can watch along with us here by clicking below.

Rachel Maddow discussed “rocking out with our caucus out,” noting that The Republicans “kind of seem to hate” Mitt Romney. However, she would definitely love to see a debate between Rick Santorum and Barack Obama, particularly if they talk about birth control, abortion and social security.

Radio host Laura Ingraham took to her blog today to discuss the possibility of former Speaker Newt Gingrich working with Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, who very nearly beat out Mitt Romney in Iowa this week. Ingraham offered readers a wee bit of Gingrich fan fiction, showing us how such an alliance might look

Jon Stewart had a lot on his plate today, with the Iowa caucuses cramming a week’s worth of news into the wee hours of the night early Wednesday morning. Stewart gave every candidate their turn, and praised everyone from Rick Santorum to Mitt Romney for sticking with it. One entity notably getting moans and groans from Stewart for its inanity: CNN, for its “weeble” cyber-illustration of the caucuses.

So. Now that the results of last night’s Iowa caucus are in and we can all celebrate with / mumble about the winning candidates accordingly, let’s focus a bit on those who didn’t fare so well in The Hawkeye State. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who took in 5 percent of yesterday’s days, and Texas governor Rick Perry, who brought in 10.3 percent, have both decided to cancel appearances in South Carolina.

Rick Perry‘s devastating fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucus, despite his early buzz and spending the most money in the state prompted CNN political commentator James Carville to call his campaign the worst in American history. “Rick Perry is the worst presidential campaign, candidate in American history,” Carville boldly declared, spurring loud disagreement with his fellow panelists.

In one of the closest races in recent memory, in which, as numbers rolled in, the lead depended sometimes on as little as 15 votes. With the full assessment of the votes in, it is now clear that Rick Santorum eked out a double-digit (in actual votes, not percentage points) victory over Mitt Romney, with Rep. Ron Paul in third place followed by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rep. Michele Bachmann rounding out the top.

Rick Perry was a guest on America’s Newsroom Tuesday morning, and made it very clear that — although Martha MacCallum valiantly tried to bring up a possible third-place finish several times — he was hoping to win the Iowa Caucus.

Rick Perry was a guest on Fox and Friends Monday morning and was given a chance to rebut a POLITICO story that quoted an unnamed senior adviser for his campaign as saying that there has never been a, “more ineptly orchestrated, just unbelievably subpar campaign” for President of the United States.

With all due respect, there have been a lot of Rick Perry gaffes in this campaign so far. Heck, I don’t think even Perry would argue with that. I have to say, though, this is one of the most enjoyable. You see, during an Iowa town hall, Perry was asked a question about a Supreme Court case that, by all indications, he knew nothing about. However, instead of backing down, he bravely powered through and just kept talking, somehow managing to give a two and a half minute answer about…something.

Viewers of Thursday night’s opening Ed Show segment might have done a double-take as Ed Schultz introduced a segment on surging GOP hopeful Rick Santorum when it looked like the host showed up in some b-roll of a Santorum town hall meeting. But sure enough, Ed was there, and conducted a surprising interview with the socially conservative former Senator that had Schultz wondering if Santorum could be a threat to win Iowa.

After the potentially politically devastating news that he didn’t meet the 10,000 signature threshold to qualify for the Virginia ballot, Texas Governor Rick Perry is suing the state to have its ballot rules struck down as unconstitutional. “Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multi-candidate election,” said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan

When you’re running to be the next President of the United States, it’s generally a good idea to make sure people are able to vote for you. But in a surprise twist in this already twisted-up campaign, both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry will not be on the ballot when Virginia Republican voters go to cast their vote for their party’s nominee, meaning the primary in that state will boil down to a contest between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

During his last week before vacation, Jon Stewart sat down the Republican Party and staged an intervention to get them to realize just how terrible nominating Newt Gingrich would be for their party. He may have been doing the GOP a favor, but Lawrence O’Donnell tonight had to stage his own intervention with Stewart to remind him of a very salient point: Newt Gingrich makes for great comedy.

Yesterday, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry referred to the government’s $700 billion bailout of Wall Street as “the single biggest act of theft in American history,” reminding those gathered at an Iowa Pizza Ranch of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney‘s support for it while pointing to his own status as an “outsider.”

With the Iowa Caucuses just two weeks away, GOP presidential hopefuls are hitting the campaign stops hard. At the end of a stop last night in the town of Decorah, Governor Rick Perry found himself confronted by a 14 year-old girl asking why the Texas governor was so opposed to gays serving in the military (a theme that was front and center in one of his recent campaign ads.) Perry handled the confrontational question calmly, but in a way that is unlikely to bridge the divide between his supporters and his detractors, particularly on the issue of tolerance of Gay Americans.