The Texas Tribune reviews Rick Perry’s book Fed Up! so you don’t have to read it yourself. It appears to me that Mr. Perry is a socially-conservative libertarian of the worst sort. He wants the federal government to do practically nothing and the federal courts to shut their collective pie holes. Yet, he’s concerned about cuts in defense spending; he wants the government investigating every failed pregnancy in the country; and he thinks Texas should be able put people on trial for sodomy.
If you’re polling the issues, Mr. Perry seems to be on the minority side of pretty much everything. He dislikes everything that the government does that people value and respect, and he supports the kinds of things people don’t want the government doing, like inspecting their underpants.
Ask him how he’ll protect Social Security and Medicare and he’ll tell you that he’ll dissolve those programs and leave it to the states to provide for the dignity of the elderly.
Ask him how he’ll improve schools and he’ll tell you that he’ll get the federal government out of your business and leave it to local governments to worry about education.
Ask him how he’ll prevent another financial catastrophe on Wall Street and he’ll tell you that he’ll get the federal government off Wall Street’s back, and then he’ll blame Fannie and Freddie for making loans to black people.
Ask him if CEO-pay is too high and he’ll say it’s none of our business.
Ask him about climate change and he’ll say it’s a scam carried out by unethical intellectuals.
I don’t think a majority of the people support any of these positions.
He’s going to run on a platform of ‘Elect me and I’ll do nothing except spend money on bombs and miscarriage investigations.”
Doesn’t strike me as a winner.
No. Quite the opposite. He’ll say as little as possible about those matters, especially in a general election.
At that point, his actual platform will be: “Elect me and I won’t be black.” Which has certainly won elections before.
true. However, unless he backs down and gets all flip-floppy, he’s going to have to hide from reporters and refuse to debate.
Perry won’t back down. Quite the opposite; his handlers will try to muzzle him, but, as with Palin and Bachmann, he won’t be denied.
He’s not worried about reporters. Not in this country. Palin’s been ducking them for three years and is still considered a viable presidential threat in some quarters. And debate expectations were so low for her that a lot of people thought she “won” her debate with Biden just by smiling and winking.
No, Perry’s worst enemy is himself. Ultimately, I think he has the potential to be very, very dangerous, but only if he exercises a lot more self-control than he’s ever shown before in his political career. Early returns aren’t pointing in that direction. I think he self-destructs, with a belated but enthusiastic assist from the Republican establishment and the Village pundits that go to their cocktail parties.
The problem is he could still win the nomination, given all that. The base is that crazy, and they just might have the power now to nominate one of their own. Especially with the economy, that still gives him a puncher’s chance.
What’s convenient about that strategy is that he doesn’t have to say a thing. He’s his own visual aid.
Does he win if unemployment is above 9%? I think the far right knows he’s extremist, but he’s a good southern boy so that will net him at least 150 electoral votes no matter what. If the country is feeling real economic pain though, and he’s the only alternative, I think he has a decent chance of getting the addition 125 or so electoral votes he needs to win. The far-right knows this is and is making a bold (and risky) bet that it can win no matter what, and once they have him in office they can go about dismantling the new deal.
The extremism of the GOP and the unpopularity of Obama are 2 sides of the same coin. And the great unanswered question of American politics that McConnel thrusted on this nation in 2009 is whether the extremism of the GOP will weaken its Presidential candidate in 2012 more than it does Obama (by making him an ineffective and weak President).
Consider, though, the ramifications of this undoubtedly “bold” risk that the GOP may take in nominating Perry. What they risk is a landslide victory by Obama (spurred in no small part by Perry’s extremism), with sufficient coattails to return Nancy Pelosi as Speaker and retain Democratic control of the Senate.
Think about this situation if the roles were reversed: Dems had control of the House only, and nominated some extreme left-wing version of Perry to go up against a sitting President. And that the sitting Republican President had mediocre approval ratings due to the recession, but was still vastly more popular than any other politician in the country. And he also happened to be the most skilled campaigner in a generation, plus had a crack staff/grassroots organization that won the previous election for him in a landslide.
Now consider that reverse scenario, and add to it the notion that landslide re-election wins of incumbent Presidents, especially against extremist opposition party candidates, appear to do severe long-term electoral damage to the reputation/brand of the party that nominates the extremist candidate.
Under that scenario, if you were in your right mind, would you root for the Democrats to nominate their extremist presidential candidate? If you were the Republican party-in-power, would you be panicking about the upcoming election? Would the payoff – a marginal chance of getting your extremist candidate into office – be worth the risk of a landslide electoral victory by the GOP, in which they managed to secure control of all three branches of government, for the second time in as many Congressional terms?
I wouldn’t take that bet. Unless I were delusional.
I’m not sure that your analogy stands up. It seems you are assuming a level playing field at that start for both scenarios. It assumes that a left wing version of Perry gets the same treatment by the media and particularly by the beltway punditry that a Perry does. And the chances of that would less than zero, if that were theoretically possible.
The extreme of the left wing gets far different treatment that the extreme on the right. I am sure that you know that.
There is only so much that even the right-wing media wurlitzer can do. They can’t spin gold out of complete shit. Remember, Dubya ran as a moderate, and even Reagan was far to the left of where his party stands today. At a certain point, there’s no more entitlement flesh for the GOP to cut into, and they start hitting the bone of sacred programs like SS and Medicare. Perry’s position on those, plus the other items BooMan rattled off, set him up for a complete rejection by the general American public. No amount of talking heads, tv/radio channels, conservative think-tanks, and pliant MSM can fix that.
Just a word of caution. Many liberals in the 1970s laughed at the idea that Ronald Reagan would ever be elected president because he was so far out of the mainstream.
There is a subplot to this, and it may be more important than the main act. The extremists in the GOP want to capture decisive control of the party. Yes, the extremists have already won control of the party, but who is the leader of the extremists? (At one time it was definitely Palin, but that hasn’t been the case for a while.) The answer is, no one. But Rick Perry right now is coming on very strong. Not to be president, which he will not be, but to lead the fascist agenda.
I’m sure all of them would like to be president, but what these midgets are really competing for is leadership of the fascist wing of the GOP, which is the only wing that counts any more. Given their positions, this contest is to the detriment of their general electability. This is why Karl Rove is upset. He used to be able to fool or scare people into voting for GOP candidates, or at least not voting for Democrats. Now Rove’s completely lost control of the agenda. The present crop of clowns are not clever. They straight out say what they want to do.
But McConnell has already won. There is no way the Democrats get more than 60 Senators come Novemeber 2012. Unless some southern states find real religion.
“Elect me, and we bomb Canada”
Somewhere in Manitoba a prairie dog is slightly nervous.
But Booman, He sure has nice hair. Nice boots, too.
Priorities…
Lol, Joe Scarborough let him have it this morning.
Just watched it. Link if anyone’s interested.
he has a ton of political ads just waiting to be made.
what I mean by this is….
just quote his damn book that he’s not running away from.
I suspect Perry is just this month’s Donald Trump (remember when he surged to the top of the Republican polls as recently as April?) or Fred Thompson (similar in 2007). He appeared attractive to the Washington Insiders when they didn’t know much about him, but now that he’s got their attention they are finding out what he’s really like and are recoiling in disgust.
It’s already clear that Perry’s going to flame out quickly under the media ‘scope. His campaign managers are smarter than him, and they tried desperately to distance themselves him from his book, but then Perry himself contradicted his campaign and stepped up the crazy with the “Ponzi scheme” meme.
He really is just a male Sarah Palin. Not very bright, gets all of his news from extreme right wing sources, believes all the crazy wingnut conspiracy theories, and when caught out in a lie lashes out at the media and anyone else he can think of.
The GOP formula for success is going to have to be a candidate who talks the centrist talk, secretly believes in all the policies and priorities of the owners of the GOP (i.e. Wall Street, War, Inc., etc.) and, most importantly, is trusted by the wingnut base to secretly be “one of them” without having to officially articulate that fact.
This is the formula they used for George W Bush. When asked about a ban on abortion, for example, he said something like “that won’t happen until we change a lot of people’s minds”. This was a response designed to reassure the centrists while signaling to the base that he was with them. Or the standard-issue centrist-sounding “teach the controversy” approach they use to push creationist dogma.
The problem in 2012 is that the base has become so crazy that it is much harder to find double-entendres for their key issues. Questions like “Do you believe that the earth is warming?” and “Do you believe that the President was born in the United States?” don’t leave much wiggle room. If you give a YES to either the wingnuts will be pissed off, but if you try to dodge the question or give less than a YES response on these questions you are endorsing whacko conspiracies. There isn’t a “teach the controversy” approach to these two.
I have to think that the GOP elders are watching this and either planning to introduce a savior candidate late this year after the others flame out, or planning an amazing come-from-behind-at-the-last-minute redemption for Romney, like happened for McCain in 2008 (remember McCain was largely written off for the nomination by most pundits at this point 4 years ago, as his numbers were down, campaign was in disarray with people quitting, and fund-raising was weak).
If they introduce Romney, or any other supposedly sane candidate, I think the TP’ers might very well bolt. Either by starting a new party or just staying home. In any case there would be great dissension within the GOP. Romney would be a lousy candidate, and I can’t think of who else Rove might have in mind.
Yeah. On that basis alone it’s just about impossible for me to see how he gets to the nomination. He’s an incredibly weak “front-runner,” if he’s even that anymore. How on earth could most Republican primary voters pull the lever for him? They don’t have that kind of self-control.
His accent and rhythm will remind too many people of Bush – who’s not looking better as time goes by, even by right-wing standards – so I don’t see him getting too far. Never count out a heaping pile of cash, though, and he has heaping piles.
I keep suggesting Jeb Bush, although others have said he’s waiting in the wings until 2016. The problem with “waiting until 2016” — or waiting for any future election year — is that you never know what’s going to happen so if you are lucky enough to be a viable presidential candidate you should take your shot when the opportunity presents.
It’s worth noting that in 1991 George H Bush appeared unbeatable in the wake of the first Gulf War so many potential Democratic candidates opted not to run for the 1992 nomination, fearing it was going to be another 1984 landslide and thinking 1996 would be a better choice. So a young, barely-known governor from a small southern state who was running mostly to build name recognition for future runs ran away with the nomination and won the election after Bush’s ratings collapsed due to the economy. Thus, those who were “waiting for 1996” never got the chance.
It’s hard to find any other viable possibility. A highly-rated (by the public) military general may be attractive, but you wouldn’t want to bring him in at the last minute without prior campaign experience or else you could have the flame-out problem.
However, regarding Romney and the tea party wingnuts, I figure the GOP elders can pull a McCain on their base (like they did in 2008) one more time before the wingnuts go all third party on them. As long as Romney picks a bonafide wingnut crazy as VP.
I think the real problem for the GOP elders is that Romney is proving to be such a weak candidate on the national stage that he could conceivably lose to Obama even if the economy were still stagnant.
Yes there are problems waiting for the next election but in Jeb’s case he’s stuck with the awful and still too fresh memory of his dumb brother. The political situation and the calendar therefore dictate that 2012 is a losing proposition for the Jebster. He’ll only be a sidelines observer this time and may never make it to the presidency.
As for the Clinton ’92 example he was hardly an unknown — elected multiple times statewide in AR, head of the Governor’s Conference, key figure at the DLC, gave a rather famous speech at the 1988 Dem convo and followed it up with a well pubbed appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny — and besides, after Jimmy ’76 there was no such thing as an unknown small state southern gov sneaking his way to the nom. Clinton in fact had seriously considered running four years earlier.
I think Perry is the real deal from a GOP perspective and his impressive track record of winning elections in TX as well as his political positioning between the two wings of his party, along with his preferred religious profile, suggest he is going to be a serious contender.
Finally re placating the far right with another VP pick, they won’t accept that since they are in a much stronger position today within their party compared to four years ago. This time they will demand a real conservative at the top of the ticket — and it will be the moderates who will have to settle for the consolation prize.