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.
JPL
and cowboy suits cuz we all need those cowboy suits.
Mr Stagger Lee
I wonder how long he will claim to be a descendent of (a) Jefferson Davis, (B)Robert E. Lee or (c)Nathan Bedford Forrest?
Derf
On the bright side, with this new shiny object I don’t have to read from you cup half empties spewing endlessly about Bachmann hypothetical impossibilities for awhile.
Now all we need is a Ralph Nader to keep you all circle jerking perpetually.
Bob
Quote of the day.
Villago Delenda Est
The country the teabaggers want back was crushed by Union armies 146 years ago.
We may have to do it again.
Mike in NC
Why not all three of those bastards? The perfect credentials for the face of the New Confederate Party. Yeehaw!
Baud
You watch so I don’t have to. Thank you.
Derf
@Bob: He does look like he would grab the nearest baby to shield himself if he saw a psychic gunman on the balcony.
Guster
I don’t understand the Republican establishment’s opposition.
He seems very like Bush. What’s not to like–for them?
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Local paper ran an excellent comment on this today, much to my surprise. Quite eloquent, IMHO.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/08/13/2328569/nihilism-returns-to-fight-obama.html
4tehlulz
@Guster: He believes his Christard bullshit.
JPL
Doug, I spent my day finishing up my kitchen remodel and pulling out 4 ft weeds and I feel blessed. Why would you watch PERRY?
You know they help for that right………
Anne Laurie
I’ve already put up a new category, DougJ: Perry-tinnitus. Just a suggestion…
Felinious Wench
Out of respect for the late, great Molly Ivins, he must be referred to as “Governor Goodhair.”
Sorry to inflict him on the rest of you. Hopefully you can send him home to us soon so we can find a nice baseball team for him to buy or something.
jwb
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the main question I have is whether he is a grifter or a believer. Because if he’s a grifter, he’s merely Romney who can play teabagger on the trail, but the money people will be able to keep him under control. But if he’s a believer, lord help us all, because unlike Bachmann he does not exude crazy (though he really is dumber than a brick).
The Dangerman
Wants to do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; DOA.
nwithers
Good God! Didn’t the last Governor from Texas do enough damage? Haven’t we learned anything?
Guster
@4tehlulz: Is that a problem for them, as long as he doesn’t _act_ on it? I mean, has he given any indication that he can’t be controlled?
Guster
@The Dangerman: He doesn’t want to do away with them; he wants to improve them fiscally responsible gotta pay our debts can’t saddle our children my family balances our budget all that money goes to the innercity, is you see what I mean.
Derf
Seems to me the GOP only has 2 requirements. Good hair and Texas drawl. Crazy got nuttin ta do wit it.
Oh and he does fill that void left since the Huckster decided he wasn’t going to pour the Jesus juice.
Jenny
Monkey see – Monkey do
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4884/topgunperry.jpg
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Derf: I’m trying to imagine a psychic gunman. He sees the shot hit its mark before he pulls the trigger?
Lolis
@nwithers:
Well nobody has elected him yet. I don’t even know if Rick Perry could win a general election if we were at 25 percent unemployment. He is as grating as Palin and he is not used to answering press questions or debating the opposition. He will have a harder fight than he has ever had before. As a Texas resident, I look forward to him going down in flames. I hope it is in the general and not the primary.
jwb
@Guster: He’s not well liked by the GOP establishment in Texas, and he’s crossed their financial interests in terms of state government policy on more than one occasion. The actual source of his financial backing is also not as clear as it was in case of W. If you want to see the fault lines of the GOP in Texas, take a look at his higher education policy, especially the pushback he got from major GOP donors on the policies that regents that he appointed attempted to implement at UT this past spring and summer.
The Dangerman
Guster:
So, my snark meter is pegging, but he can’t use that tripe of keeping them safe for our kids; he called them a Ponzi scheme. DOA (in the General, at least).
As for their nomination, since Perry is DOA and they really want to win, it’ll be … shit, I don’t know. Their whole announced lineup sucks. I’ll still go with Palin (Perry as VP).
gogol's wife
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
It’s a reference to the movie The Dead Zone. Christopher Walken plays a psychic and I don’t remember the rest of the plot. He needs to kill evil politician Martin Sheen. It’s good.
Linda Featheringill
@Derf:
I agree with you on that one.
General Stuck
The thing I notice about him, is when he talks of liberals in this country, he will kind of drop his head and give a dead eye look at the faithful, that says anything goes to deal with this enemy of gawd, or something like that. He is different and much more menacing than GWB, though he is in Cheney territory of no rules for dealing with your enemies, real and perceived. And yes, I get that tea bagger nihilistic vibe from him, that if we can’t control it, let’s burn it all down and and build it right this time.
ChrisNYC
So not getting the Perry = GWB idea. GWB was not an actual Texas cowboy. He’s a Yalie whose dad was VP, Prez and head of the CIA. Geez, … Bandar Bush, The Carlyle Group. It was those things — not brushcutting and cowboy boots — that dropped him into the WH.
aisce
@ mike in nc
hmm, kawan pauling wrote this you say? that sounds suspiciously black, so i think we can safely ignore what he writes. he clearly can’t be trusted to be impartial. not like a real (white) ‘murican.
though i do like how he bullshitted that bin laden was our greatest enemy since world war two. poor soviet union, to be completely forgotten by the kids already.
Rhoda
He declared Social Security is a Ponzi scheme in New Hampshire yesterday; I’m not scared of that motherfucker.
Romney has always been the bigger threat; Independents would feel just fine pulling the lever for him given how crappy the economy is because he’s a Ken doll president. Just as they pulled the lever for the crazy in ’10. Fortunately, bigots rule the Republican party so I’m pretty sure Romney’s candidacy is dead in the water and if not he’s going to have to out wingnut Perry to make the nomination.
Jenny
Shalimar
@jwb: I think he is most likely a grifter. His tax returns regarding charitable contributions to his church were a big tip off. He didn’t give consistently, the totals varied drastically from year to year and included some years where he didn’t claim anything. If he is a good christian whenever it is convenient, then everything about him is for political opportunity.
hildebrand
Can someone please help me understand how any of these people can overcome the cognitive dissonance between a belief in fundamentalist Christianity with a love and belief of/in Ayn Rand? My god, that is the one that makes me smack my forehead every single time.
Anybody want to try to take a realistic crack at this?
TooManyJens
Well, this is a hell of a thing to sit down to after a long Sunday. Maybe I should go find a pet thread to read first. ::backs away slowly::
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@nwithers: No. Remember 2010? You would have thought two years wasn’t enough time.
Jenny
This article from his Q&A with New Hampshire wingers/nihilists is just full of win.
http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/08/ponzis-and-predators-perry-outlines-policies/GocJEtJGv5iKloBLrLTbmK/index.html
He wants to kill social security, he wants to go to war, and he mocks the inherit danger of nuclear power.
Guster
@jwb: Ah. I didn’t know that. V. interesting, thanks.
@The Dangerman: Maybe, but that seems like just the sorta thing (and secession) that come out for a few days, then fades away into yesterday’s news.
Keith G
I think most of us from Texas would agree that Perry is the most dangerous of the GOP. I do fear that if he is able to make it to the nomination without a fully pitched, all cards on the table battle, he will be able to run a front porch campaign in the general where his-up beat, moralistic swagger and BS will be seen as a tonic for the nation’s ills.
Quiddity
Perry has a dark visage and contrasts markedly with Romney’s sunnier character. If I had to take a cross-country drive with one of those guys, I’d unhesitatingly choose Romney, even with the cornball jokes and occasional unctuousness.
I don’t think Perry has much appeal and will plateau in short order once people get more exposure to him.
JPL
@hildebrand: It’s easy because if the poor just believed in Rand’s god they too or also, too could have oil wells in their back yard. It’s all about hard work unless you are sick and then you claim medicare under your husband’s name and take government care freely because you can. Ayn Rand
PurpleGirl
@hildebrand: There is no rational explanation. They are living in a decidedly different unreal world. Either they can’t or they don’t want to come over to the real world.
Or, I figure there must be extreme brain damage of some sort.
Chris
@hildebrand:
I got no answer. There may not be one. But I’d be quite interested in seeing what realistic cracks people could take at it…
cleek
gah.
fuck Rick Perry.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Rhoda:
Really? Wow. I’m starting to really wonder if Perry was sent by the money men to kamikaze into Paul and Bachmann.
Keith G
@hildebrand: Easy. None of that crowd care one wit about intellectual coherence. They do care abut living the consumer-based, I am what I own, American dream of them last three decades.
They will freekin swallow the seed of any good ol’ boy who will promise them that they can carry on. And they have no problem ignoring the all the data that shows our past can never be our future.
Chris
@Rhoda:
It’s interesting that no matter how much they hate Social Security and Medicare, NONE of them are apparently willing to come out and say loud and clear “and we’re going to privatize it!”
The Dangerman
@Chris:
There’s an old golf axiom about driving for show and putting for dough; in this case, there is a large segment of the population whose Christianity is all for show when all they care about is dough. To go Galt (“I’ve got mine, fuck you”) is to willfully ignore a large segment of the New Testament.
jwb
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: This is almost certainly establishment money men’s plan. It’s not clear whether Perry (and his deep money) is playing along, however. For the establishment money men, the concern is Bachmann not Paul, who is not seen as a threat. Personally, I think the establishment money men have miscalculated and made Perry the odds on favorite to take the nomination.
MattR
@Jenny:
Now that is some good incoherence from Perry. OTOH, if you replace the phrase “Ponzi scheme” with “piggy bank that Republicans plan to loot” then I agree with him 100%.
Unlike Medicare or Social Security, someone in Perry’s position should never expect to be in such a poor financial situation that they would qualify for Medicaid. But that does not mean that paying insurance now to make sure you are covered in the event that circumstances change in the future is actually a bad thing. Nobody bitches about having car insurance or term life insurance despite the fact that they expect to never collect from the insurance company.
hildebrand
Gah – just thinking about this makes my head hurt. That said, the only way that I can get to a Randian-Christian synthesis is if they simply don’t read anything that Jesus said, or completely twist the words that are written down in the gospels. If they can convince themselves that what that Jesus of Nazareth fella kept yammering on about is not actually what he ‘meant’, then maybe one can get there. But, then I am back to first base – as they simply are not Christian. Period. End of story.
Not that this comes as a surprise to me, because clearly none of these people have ever taken the words actually in the gospels seriously. I think think they all rather skip straight to Paul’s letters and try to conveniently forget all that rather counter-cultural stuff that Jesus kept spouting.
Still trying to figure out why they even bother with the whole Christian label.
gnomedad
@hildebrand:
By not getting all fussy about making any kind of sense?
Cat Lady
I just don’t think anyone other than us here at BJ really understands yet how radical Republicans are. It was particularly horrifying to watch a political roundtable this afternoon, giving it all a respectable veneer. There have always been Rick Perrys out there, but the press has abdicated their traditional gatekeeping job, and instead have greased the skids for these marginally sane whackadoodles to become viable – that’s what’s really changed for the worse in this country. The media wants an interesting horse race to keep them amused through the primary season, and Perry and Bachmann are all they have to work with, so that’s what they’ll promote. The FAIL media must be boycotted.
Chris
@The Dangerman:
Good point. And I suppose it’s possible they don’t even know that Ayn Rand is an atheist and militantly anti-Christian (how many of them have actually read or researched her, after all, as opposed to just read excerpts posted by RedState, BigHollywood or PJMedia?) After all, this is the lot that thinks the Founding Fathers were some kind of Focus on the Family graduates.
There. That’s my stab at it.
@MattR:
Well of course they do. They’ve spent the last twenty-some years listening to Daddy ramble on at every dinner time “when I’m President, every last penny of that money is going into Wall Street’s pockets before you can say ‘Who is John Galt!'” They know what they’re in for better than anyone.
Jenny
@Chris: Perry doesn’t want to privatize it, he wants to completely end it.
So he’ll end social security, and keep supplemental security income which pays a monthly stipend of $674 to indigent individuals.
Chris
@hildebrand:
Hild, one other thing: you realize there’s a huge, massive industry whose purpose is to provide ready-made rationalizations for how this or that political position is in fact “Christian,” or more generally “OK?” For example, charity: “Jesus was smart enough never to run for office. He wanted you to help the poor, but he wanted you to do that of your own free will, with your own conscience. Because he knew that government doesn’t work.” Weeks later, gay marriage: “The Bible says gay marriage is an abomination. If you allow it, you’ll destroy the fabric of the nice Christian society we’ve created. Now I ask you, do you want that?”
And we’re talking newspaper articles, talk show hosts, televangelists and regular pastors, politicians making speeches, all the activist organizations that cluster around the GOP, think tanks (for the intellectually oriented), and now this new Tea Party Movement. It’s a gigantic noise machine, all of it saying the same things all together. If you’ve grown up hearing little but that, it leaves a hell of a mark on you even if it doesn’t make any sense.
waratah
I miss Molly, hope some of these points come out especially what she said about him raising taxes. So true.
http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/rick-perry-seen-through-words-late-molly-ivins/
Amir Khalid
@hildebrand:
Okay, here goes.
The reconciliation between these people’s fundamentalist religiosity and Ayn Rand’s selfish-is-good ideology doesn’t take place on any level of rational thought. They identify as Christians only because they were born among Christians. They understand being Christian the way a toddler understands being named, say, Mary, and they take it no further than that. Rand’s “philosophy” struck me as what a particularly bratty three year old might formulate, more or less, if she had writing skills like a woman of 40.
So it’s all about the little angel inside them letting his/her freak flag fly. These people are willfully immature and proud of it.
Leadpipe
@Bob: My sentiments exactly.
Jeffro
Folks, just consider that Perry thinks he’s been ‘called’ to run…he’s a Texan and a Tea Party Republican through and through…he has nothing to offer economics-wise that hasn’t already been tried and failed for the past 30 years…
…and he will talk about these things endlessly for the next 15 months, shoring up the Dem base and keeping enough independents that even the Great Recession (and the Dumbass Austerity) can’t put him in the Oval Office.
Please, Rick, feel emboldened enough to say that the way forward in these times is to mess with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And then talk about all those burning social issues Americans care so much about. GO FOR IT!!
kdaug
@jwb:
He used to be a Democrat, and was Gore’s state campaign chairman back in the day…
JPL
@Cat Lady: how could anyone know because that darn liberal media won’t tell them..
My dentist recently mentioned that he hope to get social security and I laughed and said you know that’s funded for forty years right…..
edit..i did explain some confused social security with medicare..
SiubhanDuinne
@Quiddity:
Perry has a dark visage and contrasts markedly with Romney’s sunnier character. If I had to take a cross-country drive with one of those guys, I’d unhesitatingly choose Romney, even with the
cornball jokes and occasional unctuousnessdog tied to the roof of the car.FTFY
Cat Lady
@JPL:
I just don’t see how the press maintains any credibility at all through the next few months as Perry and Bachmann feel more and more emboldened to go full metal wingnut by the lack of pushback from the Gregorys and Todds. How do the beltway hacks get away with ignoring the Paultards again? The media is going to be the next institution that collapses before our very eyes, as the Murdoch scandals ramp up here too, and Villagers are no longer needed or trusted. It’s inevitable. That will be our American Spring.
Jennifer
FWIW, I’ve already put together some campaign bumperstickers for Gov. Goodhair and Beauregard (that’s his hair’s name).
Omnes Omnibus
@Jennifer: On behalf of my long deceased childhood pet English cocker spaniel, Beauregard, I strenuously object.
Yutsano
@JPL: Can I just root for injuries? Granted things have started down that path for them already…
Grumpy Code Monkey
George W. Bush got elected President twice. He very obviously appealed to at least half of the country. Perry is going to similarly appeal to a helluva a lot of people who are going to be iffy on Obama for whatever reason.
He will win the nomination, and he’s going to be a significant threat in the general.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@Amir Khalid:
This is a truly wonderful sentence.
OzoneR
@The Dangerman:
White; wins
TooManyJens
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Yeah, but then Katrina happened and the wars turned sour(er) and the country turned on him. If Bush could have run in 2008, a dead pig could have beaten him. It only remains to be seen whether the electorate will be able to actually remember that (unlikely) or at least have a visceral negative reaction to anyone Bush-like (possible).
Yutsano
@OzoneR: You’re both oversimplifying.
marginalized for stating documented
Whoa yeah. This guy is scary.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@OzoneR:
How’s President McCain doing?
Chris is right. The GOP couldn’t run from Vouchercare fast enough, who thinks they’re going to have a shot with someone outright threatening Social Security? Bush at least had the moderation to at least recommend privatizing it, and we can see where that led. The AARP would have Perry’s head on a pike.
OzoneR
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
You mean the guy who got 46% of the vote in the worst economic climate in 70 years despite having a campaign full of gaffes, running with a loony lady, and being from the party whose President had an approval rating in the 20s?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@OzoneR:
You mean the war hero and popular ‘mavericky’ senator who went up against the 20% guy eight years previous and still lost to a black man with a funny name?
If Perry’s going full-blown anti-SS anti-Medicare derp, the Dems could run Bo for President and Goodhair’s still toast in the general.
And I’m positive the GOP establishment and Mitt Romney know this.
Derf
@OzoneR: You clearly do not understand electorate numbers. Obama had one of the biggest wins in some time. I know it doesn’t sound like much of a margin but it is.
Look it up…..mmmmok.
Yutsano
@OzoneR: Stop being obtuse. You know full fucking well popular vote doesn’t mean shit. It’s all about the EVs baby, all about the EVs. Obama had it bagged after he won Pennsylvania. The rest were just icing.
Citizen_X
@Jenny: Oh, and it’s got this wonderful bit of Bushian coherence:
If his “challenges are not overcomable,” if that’s a real word, then they cannot be overcome, right? Meaning the exact opposite of what he meant. I think.
OzoneR
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
not without getting at least 46% first
A Humble Lurker
@Cat Lady:
(Heaves a deep sigh) If only…
TenguPhule
TenguPhule
Easy, Fundamentalist Christianity was a big Dark Age Grift getting the serfs to forge their own chains while the church whored it up and the popes and cardinals got fat and rich.
The Romans only fed the footsoldiers to the lions, when they should have been chopping off the heads of the ringleaders of the cult.
WaynersT
Reading the NYT piece on Issa’s business entanglements and cannot even begin to fathom how this is possible: 1,900% return in 7 months? W.T.F.
“In one 2008 sale, months before the stock market crashed, his family foundation earned $357,000 on an initial investment of less than $19,000 — a return of nearly 1,900 percent in just seven months, the foundation reported to the Internal Revenue Service. It reported acquiring the security, then known as AIM International Small Company Fund, at a cost basis representing a tiny fraction of the market value”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/politics/15issa.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Amir Khalid
@Citizen_X:
Be reasonable. Surely you don’t expect George Walker Bush, whose father wasn’t a billionaire, who only went to Harvard and Yale, to think to say “these challenges can be overcome”?
lonesomerobot
I seem to recall in the 80s we had another prerequisite for who should be president – the “is this the person whose finger you want on the nuclear trigger?” factor.
With Rick Perry, I’m strongly in favor of bringing that question to the fore once again. I think if people actually have to consider that this guy could end life on this planet as we know it, they might think twice about pulling the lever for him (and by “people” I don’t mean whacked-out, rapture-seeking tea baggers and the like … I mean all of the rest of us who don’t get hard-ons thinking about baby Jeebus riding in on his dinosaur shooting off shoulder-launched tactical nukes at the hordes of sinners surrounding him).
WereBear
If you read The Authoritarians (free eBook) by Bob Altemeyer, it all becomes clear.
A wingnut’s brain is carefully nurtured so that it becomes separate parts, and none of them must touch each other, lest we have a matter/anti-matter explosion right out of Star Trek.
So it’s perfectly all right for them and theirs to work for county government for the past three generations and still go to rallies saying Government Is The Problem because if you had any sense, you’d know what they mean.
Their religion isn’t want Jesus actually said in the Bible; it is what the preacherman tells them to think, because that’s his job and they are busy making sure the different parts of their brains don’t touch.
They get started early because they will be the first to tell you that Daddy beat the snot out of them when they were young and THEY turned out all right; only they didn’t. But they don’t know that because they are surrounded by people who got the same treatment as children; and are dishing it out in turn.
Thinking is for pansies and coastal elites. Real Men drop in their tracks from something they refused to go to the doctor for.
Don’t tell me I’m being prejudiced and stereotypical. This is half my Midwestern relatives; and they would happily agree with every single thing I’ve said.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@TooManyJens:
Exactly; it took a natural disaster and two wars for people to think that hey, maybe this guy isn’t the greatest leader in the world. But Perry isn’t this guy.
The voting public has a notoriously short memory, facilitated by a media that’s thoroughly bought and paid for. The ideas that Bush campaigned and won on twice (gubmint is the problem) still resonate with at least half of the people who bother to vote. After the ACA battle, those people will be even more committed.
Perry is a real threat. He appeals to a very base part of the human psyche. He’s made an art out of winning ugly. He can paint Texas’ economy in a very positive light, especially for a media that trades in sound bites and slogans, giving him a leg up on just about every other GOP candidate.
You and I know better ($15-27 bn deficit for the next two years, last place in the good metrics, first place in the bad metrics), but you and I are not the majority of voters.
We Texans tried to warn people about Bush in 2000, and we were ignored. Don’t ignore us this time. Be prepared for a real battle when Perry wins the nomination.
Frankensteinbeck
Hildebrand @39:
Others have made good points on how they end up thinking, but there’s another side to it. Cognitive Dissonance does not work the way it’s usually described. Having declared support for both Rand and Jeysis they will rearrange their beliefs in any way necessary to be able to continue to claim this. That rearrangement does not have to be logical or consistent and can include blatantly contradictory elements. Usually conflicts are covered with the thinnest excuse possible or a deliberate misunderstanding. Gibberish that sounds like it addresses the issue but means nothing is quite popular as well.
Brachiator
You people are idiots. Dubya was born in New Haven, and although raised in Texas, was steeped in the East Coast elitism that is part of the Bush tradition. His Crawford “ranch” was more a movie prop for the rubes than anything else. Perry is a fifth generation Texan. This is a whole nuther animal, and more dangerous than Bush.
Perry is going to have far more appeal than Romney in the South. It will be very interesting to see how he does in the Midwest.
El Cruzado
I don’t see what’s the big problem we’re having here with Rick Perry. He loves America so much that he wants Texas to secede from it. That makes him a Real Hardcore Liberal in my book.
rf80412
@hildebrand: There’s absolutely no contradiction. John Calvin laid the foundation by arguing wealth and power were given by God to whomever he pleased for whatever reasons pleased him, though Calvin’s emphasis was on the absolute power of God. The “prosperity gospel” went further and argued that wealth and power were manifestations of divine favor: i.e. only good Christians get rich as God rewards their faith and righteous living. Christianity has been more or less explicitly identified with capitalism since Marx condemned religion as the “opiate of the masses” and the Soviet Union officially institutionalized atheism, but the Christian churches have long agreed with Calvin that God makes some people rich and powerful and other people poor and powerless, and while he expects the rich to be good and charitable people, challenging the fundamental inequality is to defy the natural order made by God. The argument that do-gooding is the rightful role of “the Church” rather than the state also finds some scriptural support.