‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ postmortem: Why Rick Perry was eliminated

Last night’s new episode proved to be a rough one for Rick Perry on “Dancing with the Stars,” as the former Texas Governor and one-time Presidential candidate found himself eliminated from the show in 12th place. It ends a fairly short run, but let’s be honest: He also made a solid week further than we initially thought that he would.

Sometimes, writing these postmortem articles can be challenging, but that really was not the case here given that Rick was really just the victim of bad dancing. He was the worst this season and it wasn’t really close. We will give him some credit for trying, given that he did seem to warm up to the idea of dressing in funny costumes and also having fun out on the floor. He also wasn’t Master P bad; we’ve seen people on the show do far worse than him.

So why didn’t he get the support of a Bristol Palin or a Tommy Chong? We think that in Bristol’s case, she was a controversial dancer but one who was slightly better than Rick ever was. Meanwhile, for Tommy he was just ridiculous and funny. Sometimes, possessing those skills is all you need for this show.

We’re sure that Perry is far from the last political figure we’ll see on the show. ABC likes them because they are noteworthy, they come from a very different walk of life, and they are rather useful at times in proving that you can attract multiple demographics to your show. By and large, Rick probably viewers this as a success, even if it was an early exit.

You can head over here right now if you are interested in getting some other news when it comes to “Dancing with the Stars.” Meanwhile, sign up over here to score some other TV news on everything we cover via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)