Well, dang.

After Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s meteoric rise in the race for the Republican nomination on the back of exploits like his pre-Troy Davis declaration of capital punishment as “the ultimate justice,” the incredible (read: less than credible) cap-busting of a murderous coyote and, we must harp, that commercial, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Perry has suffered an almost equally meteoric decline over the past month.

His slide in popularity comes after recent blunders in GOP debates, at times stuttering and even getting publicly mocked by other presidential nominees, and conservative criticism of his policy positions, like his support for statewide HPV vaccinations and providing in-state tuition to the to the children of illegal immigrants. And, of course, there was Niggerhead.

Perry’s support among conservatives has been cut in half, from 39 percent to 19 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has held steady at 25 percent, no change from last month’s poll, but good enough to resurface as the party’s leading candidate. But the most direct beneficiary of the disenchantment with Perry is businessman Herman Cain, who is now tied with Perry for second place.