Scratch Perry

Karl Rove sure isn’t feeling the Rickmentum:

“Palin has got a pretty active schedule in early September. I think Chris Christie and Paul Ryan are going to look at it again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if all three of them gave serious consideration to it.”

I hope Ryan runs. I would like to see a presidential candidate who perfectly embodies the punditry-versus-the-people dynamic. Vouchercare is wildly unpopular with voters, but with the Village Idiots cheering him on, Ryan just might be crazy enough to run on it.

Sell yourself as a man to save

I wonder if Mitt Romney’s best strategy might be to convince the Republican establishment to try and save him from the teahadist hordes in the primaries. Maybe he can’t attack Perry too much himself (without alienating the 27 percenters) but Crossroads GPS can. This kind of crazy talk from Perry must scare the shit out of Republican strategists:

Responding to a question about the Federal Reserve at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Perry said: “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion.”

If Howard Dean accused some Fed chief of treason, the Washington Post editorial board would have written 20 or 30 editorials about it; it could be the subject of an entire book by Charles Lane. As it is, Perry won’t take all that much heat for it, but it’s pretty far over the line and I don’t think he’ll be able to get away with this kind of thing in the long term.

Perry for Prez: Grifter Going Big-Time?

(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)

Matt Yglesias at Think Progess discusses what he considers the “Ten Weirdest Ideas In Rick Perry’s ‘Fed Up’“:

Rick Perry’s November 2010 book Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington is not a typical “campaign book” from a political candidate. For starters, its forward is written by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, nominally one of Perry’s rivals for the nomination. For another thing, its overall tone much more closely resembles that of a B-list conservative radio host looking to stir up controversy and sell books than of a cautious politician trying out poll-tested lines. Consequently, while the book is by no means a good one, it’s certainly a lot more interesting than most comparable works. I read it over the weekend, and thus am proud to produce the following list of the Top Ten Weirdest Ideas…

8. Medicare Is Too Expensive But Must Never Be Cut: Both establishing Medicare in 1965 and expanding it to include prescription drugs in 2003 are examples of “an irresponsible culture of spending in Washington” (page 63), but establishing “‘councils of experts’ and panels of various sorts” to assess the cost effectiveness of different Medicare-eligible treatments is a “frightening” “scheme” that “undermines freedom” and can be fairly labeled “death panels” (page 81)...

5. Almost Everything Is Unconstitutional: Regrets the existence of jurisprudence construing the Commerce Clause to permit “federal laws regulating the environment, regulating guns, protecting civil rights, establishing the massive programs and Medicare and Medicaid, creating national minimum wage laws, [and] establishing national labor laws.” Perry makes a partial exception for laws barring racial discrimination which he says fulfill “the intent behind the passage of the Reconstruction Era amendments.” (page 51)...

It’s frig-magnet sloganeering like this and the Palenty encomium that I posted earlier which made me suspect that Perry, “a man largely unencumbered by principles” (as a former associate phrased it), was doing the Will-He-or-Won’t-He candidate dance as a means of attracting media attention to increase his marketability on the Wingnut Welfare circuit. Quite possibly at/with the “encouragement” of Republican Serious-Money backers—the people that funded the original Taxed Enough Already agitators. The Koch Bros’n’Cronies seem to be trying to choke off the genuine nutroot Zealot Candidate (Bachmann, who may have been intended as the Palin-blocker) in time to herd the rubes into the “safe” (Romney) chute before the whole Repub-brand starts to whiff too strongly of a fly-by-night carnival. But even the most hard-headed grifter is prone to end up being seduced by his own grift… all the sweet, sweet fluffing Perry’s gotten from the novelty-mad Media Village Idiots over the past week must make it hard for him to resist believing he could run a long con all the way to Tampa, if not the Oval Office.

Which means I once again am driven to quote Doghouse Riley for the perfect encapsulation:

... You’ve just got to love, or puke at the mention of, how Rick Perry became the Instantly Credible Candidate when “credible” is code for—no, hell, it’s not even code, it’s synonymous with—”rich donor list”. I mean, there’s nothing else aside from this constant artificial excitement over what bright, shiny, and fur-wrapped object has grabbed the Religious Teabagger focus du jour. The Texas Miracle—interesting, by the way; a year ago, when the now in decline Establishment Republicans for Mitch—and Mitch himself, I think it goes without saying—touted Indiana as having the best employment record in the Abysmal Obama Economy. Daniels got away with it. Perry won’t.

And don’t get me wrong: Rick Perry is religious scam artist, a public liar, and a neo-confederate fuck melon. And he could be Your Next President. None of those things is mutually exclusive of the other. Hell, in the last three decades they’re positively correlated. Rick Perry sounds like he stands for something. It may not matter anymore just What that happens to be. Democrats quit doing that full-time in 1981, after spending the previous decade apologizing for George McGovern and ridiculing Jimmy Carter. Sorry, but the possibility of President Rick Perry exists today only because Democrats wouldn’t stand up for themselves after losing to Richard Fucking Milhous Nixon.

I hate to keep bringing it up, but that’s that. Democrats decided in 1972 that Liberalism had run its course; in 1974 Democratic Senators decided it was too costly to get the money out of politics. 2006 was just a re-capitulation; Democrats placed in a two-house majority because of an extremely unpopular war couldn’t find the wherewithal to defund it, let alone bring anyone home or hold the Worst President in History accountable. Democrats are not going to take their rightful place as the majority party in the US until they chop the Republicans off at the knees. That’s a requirement. Now, of course, the GOP has gone so far Right it’s in danger of falling into a Horowitz Singularity and emerging as weirdly religious Trotskyites, and the Dems will figure once again that sooner or later they’ll return to power on the backs of what morons their opponents are.

Like running against God

There’s a good Texas Monthly article about all the elections Perry has won. Here’s my favorite part:

Running against Perry is like running against God. Everything breaks his way! Either he’s the luckiest guy in the world or the Lord is taking care of him. In 1998 Governor Bush told Bob Bullock he was going to stay out of our lieutenant governor’s race, according to Bullock. Then Bush realized that he could not run for president if it meant leaving office would elevate a Democrat to governor. So he was forced to get involved, and his parents ran ads for Perry.

He’s a relentless campaigner. I was up at five every morning just to match his schedule. Our money was about even, until an extra million dollars miraculously came to him at the last minute. Two weeks before the election, the largest flood of the century hit the Eighteenth District, which I’d represented in the state Senate. The flood inundated towns all along the Guadalupe River, with massive flooding in Gonzales, Cuero, and Victoria, my hometown. No one thinks about voting when their house is flooded. I received 70 percent of the vote there, but, of course, it was a record-low turnout. It’s hard to get out the vote from a boat. I don’t know if God is calling Rick Perry to run for president, but if he runs, the other candidates are going to need a big dose of magic and a lot of shoe leather. He is focused with a capital F, and his political advisers are the best I’ve ever seen. If you run against Rick Perry, you better pack a big lunch.

One thing to bear in mind is that Rove backed Perry during much of Perry’s career in Texas, now Rove will be on the other side, most likely. On the other hand, while Josh Marshall reads this WSJ editorial as mostly anti-Bachmann, I read it as a tentative step towards backing Perry (you can read it and judge or yourself). If Perry has the backing of the Murdoch empire, that gives him a big edge in the primary.

God, guns, and Galt

I’ve been watching Rick Perry on YouTube this afternoon, and I’m getting a real Dead Zone vibe, like he could be the guy who finally puts an end to everything once and for all.

On a more rational level, he indeed seems like a bad caricature of George W. Bush (as others have suggested), and that ought to translate into general election poison. I know he’s supposed to have a lot of baggage, and that could doom him, as could establishment Republican opposition to his candidacy, but other than that, he seems like he should whip Romney. He can talk Jeebus and he can talk teahad, and he’s a lot smoother than Bachmann.

With gay-bashing on its way out, he’s got the new bit three of Republican politics: God, guns, and Galt.

Rick Perry, Red Prince?

As Krugman is quite right to point out, when it comes to jobs, the “Texas Miracle” is overrated—all those new, mostly minimum-wage-or-below jobs barely keep up with the state’s population growth. But with so many people desperate for any kind of employment, Perry’s going to be shilling his “job creator” credentials for maximum effect. Today, the Washington Post published an article on how “Perry welcomed Chinese firm despite security concern“:

After a months-long courtship that included a trip to China, where he dined with the company’s chief executive, Perry announced that telecom firm Huawei Technologies would base its U.S. operations in Plano. In a video of that October 2010 event — now playing on YouTube, courtesy of the governor’s office — Perry praised the company’s “really strong worldwide reputation” and its chairman, Ren Zhengfei, whose straight talk he said reminded him fondly of West Texans.

While Perry focused on Huawei’s ability to create jobs in a sluggish economy, national security experts in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations had concluded that the global telecom giant poses a potential cybersecurity risk to U.S. military and businesses. Three times since 2008, a U.S. government security panel has blocked Huawei from acquiring or partnering with U.S. companies because of concerns that secrets could be leaked to China’s government or military. [...]

As governor, Perry has made international recruiting a centerpiece of his economic policy, and more than two dozen Chinese companies now have a Texas presence. China is now the state’s third-largest export-import partner…

In June 2010, the governor led a delegation to the Shanghai expo and hosted a “Texas Week” at the USA Pavilion. Perry said that trip — which was financed by the state and business groups — was intended to promote jobs and business investments.

While there, Perry made time for a dinner with Huawei’s chief executive, Ren, according to a press release. The Chinese executive is a former leader in the People’s Liberation Army who helped oversee the Chinese military’s telecom intelligence in the 1980s. His company had grown rapidly to become the world’s third-largest telecom equipment provider, with about 1,100 jobs in North America. It opened its first research office in Texas in 2001…

By the time of the announcement, security concerns about Huawei were well publicized. In 2005, a Rand report questioned Huawei’s “deep ties with the Chinese military, which serves a multi-faceted role as an important customer, as well as Huawei’s political patron and research and development partner.”...

Huawei says that these fears are unwarranted and appear based on political tensions between the United States and China. In an open letter to the U.S. government, Huawei called the claims of ongoing military ties “falsehoods.”

“The allegation that Huawei somehow poses a threat to the national security of the United States has centered on a mistaken belief that our company can use our technology to steal confidential information in the United States or launch network attacks on entities in the U.S at a specific time,” the letter said. “There is no evidence that Huawei has violated any security rules.’’

When the two most sacred Republican mantras come in conflict, National Security versus Free Markets, which one turns out to be more important to “the base”?

It could be argued that, from Rick Perry’s standpoint, it’s not important whether Huawei is stealing American technology and/or corrupting national security. China’s modern ‘economic miracle’ is based on state-of-the-art implementation of an old-fashioned oligarchy; the country’s resources are dedicated to continually improving the wealth and status of a tiny handful of “red princes”, with the vast majority of its population treated as interchangeable disposable units, and a small cadre of middle-management strivers tasked with implementing the status quo in return for a chance at rising into the princehood. This is not so different from the current Republican vision of a “restored” America, is it?