If there were any way to create sympathy for Rick Perry on pure humanitarian grounds, his appearance on CNBC this morning achieved it.

Perry, who was in a remote location(for good reason) and stood in soft focus in front of the American flag was incoherent, uninformed, unprepared and rambling. If Perry actually does have a near average native intelligence, his handlers have so bound him up that he looks like a confused post brain-surgery patient.

On the lead up to Perry's interview I thought the absence of the CNBC first string (that's a stretch) Joe Kiernan meant Perry would be thrown a bucket of soft balls. Instead the second stringers were the ones who were prepared and they completely flummoxed the Texas Governor non-whiz kid.  Most importantly, the CNBC interview is child's play compared to what is waiting for Perry when the Eastern Wall St. Establishment and Romney come after him in the Bloomberg hosted debate in New Hampshire in two weeks.

To help lay the Perry ambush at CNBC the entire prior hour was devoted to the Morning's guest, the other Rick, Scott, Governor of Florida. Scott killed Perry softly for an hour before Perry came on the show.

Some of Scotts points: 1). Texas didn't have the housing bubble that Florida had. 2) It's easier to get things done in a state when the Legislature is overwhelmingly Republican 3) He stays in close touch with Cabinet Officials in Washington to work cooperatively with them 4) One of the great assets Florida uses is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--they are performing deep harbor improvements in Florida to increase exports and create 30K jobs 5) Oh, by the way, Obama's payroll tax cuts would help Florida businesses a lot. Did I mention that in the lastest Florida Republican Primary poll, Perry's lead of 9 points was transformed to a 6 point Romney lead.

After that audience warm-up from Rick Scott, Perry obviously had no way to regroup and it was painful to watch--even given my low regard for the wonder boy from Paint Creek. If Perry cannot handle second stringers from CNBC how can he possible handle a national debate? Perry's remote location proved useful when on the follow-up questions about Social Security--the Ponzi scheme claim and the issue of constitutionality--Perry's camera and microphone plugs were pulled. Even Tyler Matheson caught that--"..this happened right at a very important question."

While Perry was having water splashed in his face, Rick Scott deftly avoided two Social Security questions. When Perry's location recovered, he was led into additional traps about means testing and privatization of Social Security as well as the independence of the Fed.

Until this morning I thought strong Tea Party support and Evangelicals would pull Perry through the primaries. Now I have a major question of whether Perry will make it through all the debates. I think Perry has three options:

1. Fire the top tier of his campaign staff and go completely off the script. Whatever native retail skills he has, they have been completely negated by over prepping. He has to go back to being a bible thumping agrarian huckster, forget the script, forget trying to get the facts right, use the personal approach. Beg for forgiveness.

2. Become the complete populist, especially an anti-bank populist.  Despite waffling on the Fed today the one issue on which Perry has not straddled himself is Wall Street greed. After today's ambush Perry can write off whatever Wall St. funds and support he might otherwise have been expecting. That crowd is going for Romney big time. Forget them and do a Howard Dean campaign. I would contribute to him just for the theater of it.

3. Go the third party route. He has a much better chance of losing in a third party race and remaking himself in four years than he does in winning the Presidency now.

The CNBC icing on the cake was to cut-off Perry's last rambling remarks to announce Breaking News--First Time Unemployment Claims dropped to the lowest level since April.