Another poll out showing Perry with a big lead nationally in the Republican primary. Recently, Perry signed one of those nutty anti-marriage equality pledges. Perry is a big fan of Glenn Beck favorite Cleon Skousen.
One way or another, this is the year Millerism/Anglism/O’Donnellism goes national. If Perry implodes, some other kook will crank it up. If Romney holds off the challenge, it will be by taking flat earth stances himself. There’s no off-position on the Republican party’s teahad switch anymore.
The only question is how long the media will pretend this isn’t happening.
JGabriel
DougJ:
That’s because it’s less a switch than a coming out party.
.
JC
Not suprised, of course. Perry is the real deal, he’s not making a comeback, he’s been here for years.
If Perry doesn’t implode (and you would think the Social Security ponzi scheme comments show a lack of communication discipline/ability to implode), the nomination is his, no question.
I really hope the Obama administration comes up with some ways to get hiring going, if it is at all possible. The plans I’ve seen aren’t going to do much, in the real economy.
Calouste
“Perry signed one of those nutty anti-marriage equality pledges”
So, going back to the previous thread, we can safely assume that Perry is indeed gay, considering we don’t know of a scandal yet concerning Perry and a woman.
Lit3Bolt
The media doesn’t care and will only show “concern” as long as there’s a profitable narrative to be sustained.
I’d rather go full tilt survivalist than put faith in our media.
Scott
The only question is how long the media will pretend this isn’t happening.
Do you have any idea how good crazy people are for ratings?
Hunter Gathers
I’m going to go with infinity.
‘Perry calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, while Obama differs. We report. You decide.’
cleek
i for one refuse to anoint Perry as victor until he’s been through at least one primary.
Lit3Bolt
@Scott:
Sadly, people like Jay Rosen who point out that our political coverage is fully the equivalent of the Jerry Springer Show are Not Very Serious Or Savvy.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
No, the only real question is whether the rest of the country realizes that they are going to have to band together to fight off this evil.
Scott P.
“Anchor: To debate whether or not SS is a Ponzi scheme, we have a former NFL coach, a political analyst for the Heritage Foundation, Pat Buchanan, and a prominent economist.
So, what do you think?
NFL coach: Of course Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Everyone knows that!
Political Analyst: Social Security is just a scam that allows liberals to take your money to give to poor people!
Pat Buchanan: There are more illegal aliens on Social Security than real Americans!
Economist: The truth about Social Security is that it is a social insurance program designed to provide a…
Anchor: Sorry! That’s all the time we have. Stay tuned for our new reality series Home Invaders.”
Brachiator
Polls may be indicative of the mood of the GOP voter, but otherwise don’t mean shit, and is just more chum for the horse race crowd.
Huh? Hasn’t this shit been going national ever since Sarah Palin became the icon of Real Americans(tm)?
There never was an off switch. This is old news, an aspect of the inevitable (and well documented) isolation of Republican moderates.
Do you really need a media weathervane to know which way the wind blows?
Derf
I’m pretty sure Cole will vote for Perry if he gets that far. Then continue to whine about how Washington is all messed up, needless wars yada yada as if he’s just a passive observer.
reflectionephemeral
That’s just the question I was asking the other day, in light of all the polls that show that the Tea Party is spectacularly unpopular, and recent stories about folks like Orrin Hatch, who’ve staved off Tea challenges by… doing everything the TP wants them to do.
As everyone’s pointed out on this thread, the answer is, “forever.” MSM centrism dictates that “both sides are too extreme,” regardless of how many sides there are, or how many are extreme.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Scott P.: we have a former NFL coach,
Ditka? I’ve heard he’s a big Palin booster, has al-Foxeera actually had him on to talk politics?
rlrr
Some intrepid report should ask Perry to define what a Ponzi scheme is…
Big Baby DougJ
@cleek:
I didn’t say he’d be the victor, I said it would either be him or another kook or that Romney would go flat earth.
Big Baby DougJ
@Brachiator:
McCain’s 2008 Republican campaign wasn’t a tehadist campaign. There used to be an off switch.
Dollared
@reflectionephemeral:
Right up until President Perry’s “Katrina”, midway through his second term.
I would guess it might involve the national guard shooting 25 striking VA nurses in Ohio.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
al-Jazeera has better news coverage than any American so-called news channel. If you want to tar Fox with something, compare them to North Korean TV.
Derf
@Calouste: Al-Jazeera international news kicks ass!
Cris (without an H)
@Derf: dude, you accidentally posted that from your spoof account
Dollared
@Big Baby DougJ: And why won’t Perry win? At this point, the Village is willing to stand by and let it happen. The votes will be controlled by Republican governors in 30 states. The student and black votes will be reduced by 30% and 15%, respectively.
So what’s stopping us from having President Perry? The innate good sense of the American people?
Big Baby DougJ
@Dollared:
He hasn’t won a primary yet, he could implode. I consider him the favorite but it’s very far from being a done deal.
Cris (without an H)
The electorate hasn’t had time to fall out of love with him yet.
singfoom
One must accept that the American electorate (and this includes us and even wackier peeps on the left) has little to do with rational policy preferences. This whole “election” thing is just the Real American Citizens (read, corporate donors) use to put a shine on the out and out oligarchy that controls our country.
Perry has good hair from what I’ve heard. Sure, he’s batshit crazy, but a good figurehead has to throw read meat. Once he’s installed in office, you’ll have a Cheney like figure to keep him on the straight & narrow of making sure the right people continue to profit.
Ah, the Republic, I miss her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Big Baby DougJ:
Depends on where you looked, how you define the Teahad. Palin was pretty much Teahad incarnate, with her “pallin’ around with terrerrists” schtick; “we grow good people in our small towns” was pretty typical pablum, but also coded dog-whistle.
capt
“The only question is how long the media will pretend this isn’t happening.”
Until shortly before the actual election. Until then the horse race is all about the money.
Big Baby DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, but he ran in the primary as the least crazy Republican. He was the Huntsman of that clown show….and he won.
Things done changed.
Cris (without an H)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excellent point; the Palin phenomenon was arguably the beginning of the Tea party’s rise. Let’s remember the other fanciful character from that election: Joe the Plumber. Palin may be the Tea Party’s fantasy empress, but Joe is like their poster boy.
aisce
@ dougj
only pre-palin, surely?
after palin, it was all “pallin’ around with terrorists” and weird derision for tire pressure gauges. that was the inflection point.
Big Baby DougJ
@aisce:
Yeah, only pre-Palin, I mean how he ran in the Republican primaries.
Citizen Alan
Um, until the day after President Perry’s inauguration, perhaps? It’s eleven years later, and the Heathers are still maligning Al Gore at every opportunity.
priscianusjr
@Big Baby DougJ:
catclub
@cleek: “i for one refuse to anoint Perry as victor until he’s been through at least one primary”
Where’s the fun in that?
Jenny
Why shouldn’t they when you, yourself, said last night that Parry isn’t really a teabagger, just grifting the teabaggers into voting for him. That if he got elected, he’d betray them on a whole host of issue, most importantly, abortion.
catclub
@Big Baby DougJ: Will somebody tell me who Rush Limbaugh Liked in 2008? Wasn’t it Mitt and his money? I know it was not McCain. and not Huckabee. So who is left? Tancredo? Pat Robertson? Gramps Thompson?
Jeffro
Palin took the off switch with her (along with several really nice outfits and an insatiable thirst for national attention) on Nov 5th, 2008. Considering how much she was dogwhistling through the whole campaign though, I’d have to say the switch itself was automatically disabled the day McCain picked her.
No reason to think it’ll be back anytime in the near future, either…
Brachiator
@Big Baby DougJ: RE: There never was an off switch.
Man, you are straining, and you are usually much better than this. McCain sold out what few values he had left to endorse the reign of Dubya and Cheney, which was little more than the cynical and amoral version of tehadism. Moderate voices were allowed, but ignored, and we are clearly seeing the degree to which this was the case in the snippets of Cheney’s upcoming memoir, which appears to go out of its way to slam both Condi Rice and Colin Powell.
And in unleashing Palin onto the national arena, McCain perversely made himself politically irrelevant, as GOP faithful became fired up by Caribou Barbie. And it is no accident that Bush people were among Palin’s advisors and speechwriters.
The double irony is that Palin may have been eclipsed by Bachmann and Perry, but the GOP has been cultivating this generation of crazies for a long time. It’s not that Christine ODonnell was a newcomer.
JPL
Perry is going to prove that Social Security is a ponzi scheme. He is going to steal Social Security money to pay for the tax cuts for the rich. He’s right after four years in office there will be no Social Security for those under fifty.
JC
@JPL:
I think THIS is accurate. Basically, these guys who say ‘social security won’t be there for you’, are going to create the reality of the same, if they are elected.
These guys will kill social security, and their rhetoric proves it.
agrippa
Perry will learn how we he plays outside TX. The issue will turn on how well Perry and his people adjust to feed back as the campaign wears on. This is Aug 201l; very early days.
Not very many people are paying attention; ordinary people do not do “all politics all the time”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: My recollection is Thompson was supposed to be the “real conservative” savior. I always thought it was a tell the Liz Cheney and Mary Matalin (the third Cheney daughter) went to work for his campaign for the whole two weeks
Brachiator
@Big Baby DougJ:
In this, Romney could be much like McCain. Romney is clearly willing to sell out whatever principles he has in order to get that big brass ring of the GOP nomination. The problem is, people who are willing to beg, crawl, and cravenly appeal to the worst of their supporters in order to secure a win can rarely find a way back to a reasonable position.
Elements of the GOP always hated Eisenhower, because they knew that there were lines that he would not cross in order to satisfy the worst Republican instincts.
Coming back to Romney, his other problem is that he seems to be such an insincere sellout that I bet that he makes some Republicans queasy who might otherwise find him to be a reasonable choice.
Judas Escargot
@JPL:
And the little turnips will chirp and sing his praises for stealing their retirement. And –fear not, citizens!– MSM will still find a way to blame what few Democrats are left when half the country finds themselves dining on melamine-tainted cat food from China.
This is a country full of shitty, stupid, ignorant people.
Maybe this is what we deserve, after all.
Dennis SGMM
So far, the Republicans have managed to make it so the “Government doesn’t work,” and “The government can’t create jobs.” Why not Social Security? If Satan himself appeared on the scene and guaranteed that he would end one of the last vestiges of the New Deal the Republicans would be calling for Demonic Equality.
Stillwater
I agree BigBabyJ: there is no turning back. I won’t play childish games by saying I was there first, since you already had one foot in, but we both agree on one thing: Perryism will win the nomination. No turning back now.
And if Romney makes a play for that Sweet Tea, it’s gonna blow up on him: no Tea-drinkers are gonna fall for a Mormon going Christian Native. If he moves that direction, his poll number will go down.
Perry by 28%.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
The Republicans may be outrunning their coverage here. I swear, when they talk about cutting back on entitlements, some of their supporters only hear, “The Republicans are going to end benefits for unworthy blacks and Latinos and fully restore them to Real American White People(tm).” But when the GOP start talking about Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and refer to the good old days when people took care of themselves without anything from the government, I wonder how many people are going to say “WTF?” and realize that the GOP is also saying, “No, really. We want to kill Social Security for everybody.”
Stillwater
@Big Baby DougJ: He hasn’t won a primary yet, he could implode. I consider him the favorite but it’s very far from being a done deal.
True enough. But Perry is a truly great politician (in the cynical sense of the word), and the only way he implodes is if the MIC (media industrial complex) goes black ops on him.
Since he’s the front runner and he can be bought, I don’t see that as a very high likelihood.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Stillwater:
I remember when John Kerry was ‘electable’ and ‘a closer’.
I also remember the media buying John McCain donuts.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
Romney’s problem is that he is so eager to sell himself out that nobody wants to be the remorseful buyer who finds out after the transaction is over that that this particular slippery fish won’t stay sold and has already moved on to the next buyer. Romney is the ultimate policy slut.
Stillwater
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: It’s different with Perry. Can’t you feel the TeaMentum?
In about 2-3 months he’s gonne bring it all squarely back to the center, and talk long and hard about creating jobs and working hard for the ‘economy’ and other centrist issues. No one will notice the shift. It’ll be glorious to watch.
Jeffro
@Stillwater: I am starting to see the big, big upside of a Perry/Romney throwdown for the next six months (or until whenever the SC primary is).
The Tea Party wing vs the Big Business wing: two wings enter, only one leaves. It’ll be too big and too obvious for even our witless, lazy national media to ignore.
Think of all the side benefits…
POPCORN!
Jeffro
Also, DougJ, is the post title from Audioslave, or was there an earlier “TSOTTC” that I haven’t heard yet?
Thoughtcrime
With trends like this: tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/tea-party-unfavorability-jumps-in-new-ap-poll.php?ref=fpa , why should one worry about the Teabagger flavor of the month?
Stillwater
@Jeffro: Yup. Between the two of them, they leave the party more shredded than any Democrat could have ever hoped for. Romney has to feint right to get the TP votes. Perry has to feint left to get the centrist votes. Neither of them gives a rats ass about anything they’re saying. They just want the votes.
Come general election time there’s so much dirt smeared over both of them the Dems ought to be able to scare the shit out of moderates by just airing clips from Primary speeches.
But, you know, we’ll see about that too. Democrats love to reduce their chances of actually winning.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
What happened to all the ignorant cranks who kept assuring us that Romney would be the nominee?
Suddenly they’ve all disappeared.
Mormonism, folks. Romney is a Mormon. That makes him untouchable to the fanatically fundamentalist christian evangelicals who make up the base of the Republican party.
JC
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
Well, I was one of those ignorant cranks, but that was with the caveat – given the current crop of candidates.
Or – B.P. – before Perry.
In the end, the polls that will matter, pre-primary elections, are the polls in the primary states.
One thing that I haven’t seen comments on, is that, I don’t believe the calendar is finalized, is it?
If come Super Tuesday, states like Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, pull the lever on or before Super Tuesday, if Perry hasn’t imploded, how does he lose?
Theoretically, the powers that be, could start frontloading either states like California, New York, etc, states that WILL pull for Romney, or teabagging powers that be could frontload more Perry leanng states, right?
Jeffro
@Stillwater: from Marc Thiessen at WaPo:
Since they seem to be going ‘all in’ on Teahadism, and they “settled” for McCain in 2008, I am thinking NOT on the whole settling thing. The people who are fired up are the O’Donnell-supporting types, who think that if the ticket had been Palin/McCain, why, they’d have won and won big.
Their fury when the R establishment fails to get fully behind Perry and he loses is going to be a sight to behold. Kathleen Parker, David Frum, ya hearin’ me?
Jebediah
@Jeffro:
I first thought it was Yardbirds, but that’s “Shapes of Things.” There is a book by that title by some dude called HG Wells.
Also, I think I hear James Taylor saying he wants his sweet baby J back.