BY rights, this should be the election when conservative populists, frequently thwarted and co-opted by the Republican Party’s kingmakers, finally succeed in pushing an insurgent candidate to the top of the presidential ticket. Between the zeal of the Tea Party, the unlovability of Mitt Romney and the widespread hatred of all things Washington, there’s never been a better time to run against the Republican establishment and win.

But the populists haven’t found a standard-bearer capable of taking advantage of this moment. Sarah Palin’s act grew tiresome, Mike Huckabee decided to stick with television, the Donald Trump bubble came and went, and Tim Pawlenty spent months running for president without anybody noticing. This left Michele Bachmann as the leading populist alternative to Romney — a status she enjoyed right up until the moment people started listening to what she was actually saying.

Rick Perry was supposed to put an end to the game of musical chairs. He was an outsider with insider connections, a populist with experience and organization, a successful governor whose anti-Washington persona guaranteed him credibility with the conservative grass roots.

But then came Perry’s performance in the last two Republican debates. Tongue-tied, underprepared and tone-deaf, the Texas governor mangled his attack lines, lost the thread of his arguments and accused rank-and-file conservatives — his natural base — of heartlessness on immigration. In recent polling, he’s already lost a large chunk of his initial support to yet another potential populist standard-bearer — the pizza mogul Herman Cain.