Early Thursday morning, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) campaign sent out an email to supporters, asking them to donate to the Texas governor's campaign after his forgetful moment in Wednesday's CNBC debate.
The campaign has even set up a special e-mail address -- forgetmenot@rickperry.org -- and asked supporters to send their suggestions for which federal agency they would like to see eliminated:
Friend & Supporter,
We've all had human moments.
President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.
The governor said it best afterwards: "I'm glad I had my boots on, because I sure stepped in it tonight." While the media froths over this all too human moment, we thought we would take this opportunity to ask your help in doing something much more constructive: write us to let us know what federal agency you would most like to forget.
Is it the EPA and its job-killing zealots? The NLRB and its czar-like dictates? The edu-crats at the Department of Education who aim to control your local curriculum?
Send your answer to forgetmenot@rickperry.org, and if you are on twitter join us in using a new twitter hashtag: #forgetmenot. And, if you could, throw in a $5 contribution for every agency you would like to forget. We hope you have a long list. And we promise we will write down every last idea. So we don't forget.
Still standing in our Boots,
Team Perry
At the bottom of the email is also a big red "Donate Today" button.
HuffPost's Jon Ward reported Wednesday on the potential repercussions of Perry's debate disaster:
Perry has already been beset by unforced errors in his less than three months as a presidential candidate, but this topped all of his previous gaffes. It was a moment that very well might have extinguished his chances of coming back and competing with Romney.
The Texan -- who has admitted he is not a good debater -- nonetheless entered the night needing to dramatically elevate his performance in these settings and to at least demonstrate a certain level of competence and command of the issues.
Instead, Perry's jaw-dropping memory lapse created a solid minute of full-color video memorializing the governor as a bumbling joke.
Perry hit five different morning shows Thursday in an attempt to do some damage control and address what many have judged to be a potential campaign-ending moment.
"I stepped in it last night. But I think I'm kind of like most Americans and there are so many agencies of government that they'd like to forget, that the Department of Energy was one of those," he said on NBC's "Today." He added, "I'm human like everyone else."