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June 18, 2013
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 Perry’s Big Mouth Is Giving Republicans HeadachesPosted on Aug 22, 2011
In theory, Democrats should be nervous about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to enter the presidential race. In practice, though, it’s Republicans who have zoomed up the anxiety ladder into freak-out mode. To clarify, not all Republicans are reaching for the Xanax, just those who believe the party has to appeal to centrist independents if it hopes to defeat President Obama next year. Also, those who believe that calling Social Security “an illegal Ponzi scheme” and suggesting that Medicare is unconstitutional might not be the best way to win the votes of senior citizens. These and other wild-eyed views are set out in Perry’s book “Fed Up!” His campaign has already begun trying to distance the governor from his words, with communications director Ray Sullivan saying last week that the book “is a look back, not a path forward”—that “Fed Up!” was intended “as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto.” One problem with this attempted explanation is that the book was published way back in… the fall of 2010. It’s reasonable to assume that if Perry held a bunch of radical, loony views less than a year ago, he holds them today. Another problem is that as recently as Aug. 14, according to The Wall Street Journal, Perry responded to an Iowa voter who asked how he would fix entitlement programs by saying, “Have you read my book, ‘Fed Up!’? Get a copy and read it.” Advertisement The outburst allowed Ron Paul, who has spent years calling for the Fed to be abolished, to say of Perry: “He makes me look like a moderate.” Perry made no attempt to disavow his remarks about Bernanke. Whatever his campaign staff might wish, the candidate apparently does not warm to the task of disavowal. Soon Perry moved on to the science of climate change, which “Fed Up!” dismisses as a “contrived phony mess.” Perry told an audience in New Hampshire that “a substantial number of scientists” have acted in bad faith, manipulating data “so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.” Perry added that “we’re seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.” None of that is true. There is overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that human activity—especially the burning of fossil fuels—is contributing to climate change. Multiple investigations have found no evidence of fraud or manipulation of data. Unless Perry is ready to publish fundamental new insights into physical and chemical processes at the molecular level, his swaggering stance against climate science is all hat and no cattle. “The minute that the Republican Party becomes the anti-science party, we have a huge problem,” candidate Jon Huntsman said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”—a declaration that makes me wonder how familiar Huntsman is with the political organization he seeks to lead. Also in his first week of campaigning, Perry suggested that the military doesn’t respect Obama as commander in chief—and, when asked whether he believes Obama loves America, told a reporter that “you need to ask him.” This is music to the ears of the hate-Obama crowd on the far right. But mainstream voters, whether they support Obama’s policies or not, generally like the president, do not question his patriotism and want him to succeed. “I think when you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican Party,” Huntsman said of Perry, “you make yourself unelectable.” He’s correct. But maybe we shouldn’t take his word for it, or Paul’s word—after all, they’re Perry’s opponents. Maybe we also shouldn’t take the word of Karl Rove, who called Perry’s remarks “unpresidential,” since Texas apparently isn’t big enough for both the George W. Bush camp and the Rick Perry camp to coexist without feuding. Suffice it to note that two weeks ago, GOP luminaries were scrambling to find new candidates. And now, after Perry’s debut? Still scrambling, I’m afraid.
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By drbhelthi, August 25, 2011 at 2:54 am Link to this comment
Governor Perry is a murderous monster.- -If he ever becomes president the US will end in fascism and ignominy. Archie1954
Hello ?
The USA was already there with the election of 2000.
The event of 9-11 was conclusive confirmation.
The Obama entourage passage of the “revised” Patriot Act simply made the WWII NAZI style fascism “legal” . . to the ignorant masses.
The same folk who believe that an airliner crashed into the Pentagon on 9-11, without depositing tons of wreckage - - .
Report thisBy cpb, August 24, 2011 at 5:15 pm Link to this comment
@ tropicgirl
“There are NO parties. Go to a baseball or football
game for childish crap like that.”
toooooooooooo funny!!
Report thisBy purplewolf, August 24, 2011 at 5:05 pm Link to this comment
Bobbylon: Who says we are going to vote. The voting machines are rigged to whomever the PTB want to win.
Scary Perry is as delusional as the rest of the other people seeking the prize. They are all unqualified to become president. I think I will sit this election out as none of the people offered up for this job peeks any interest. Besides the corporations have already made their choices. We will find out Nov. 2012.
Report thisBy bobbylon, August 24, 2011 at 2:57 pm Link to this comment
Do you really think these mysterious independents are willing to pull a 360 and vote in another jurassic right wing governor from Texas no matter how much they may hate or be disappointed in Obummer?
IF that’s the case, then look out for Jeb as the Republicans’ “savior” at the convention.
Report thisBy tropicgirl, August 24, 2011 at 1:35 pm Link to this comment
No,Perry is doing no such thing.
1) The neocons will put up the most ridiculous candidate they can.
2) They would rather have Obama since he is accomplishing all they hope for.
3) And when O-Stupid gets kicked to the curb, which he is well on the way to, they will emerge as saviors.
There are NO parties. Go to a baseball or football game for childish crap like that.
Report thisBy Calvinist Hobbeisan, August 24, 2011 at 12:15 pm Link to this comment
“The minute that the Republican Party becomes the anti-science party, we have a huge problem,”
It has, and we do.
Report thisBy Archie1954, August 24, 2011 at 9:20 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Governor Perry is a murderous monster. I will never forget or forgive his execution of a possibly innocent man when it would have been very simple to have allowed him to prove his innocence with new evidence. If he ever becomes president the US will end in fascism and ignominy.
Report thisBy Byard Pidgeon, August 24, 2011 at 9:07 am Link to this comment
Perry, according to the Texas Observer, “governs for the rich”. His wealthy
Report thissupporters don’t really care about any of the nutcase statements he makes or the
religious crackpot rallies. All they care about is Perry’s getting more power so he
can govern in their interests. They’ll rein him in when they feel he’s gone too far.
By PRGP, August 24, 2011 at 8:42 am Link to this comment
Rick Perry, Insane Clown Posse, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Magic Underwear Romney - Holy shit, we’re screwed with Obama, the Fed., etc. Time for a revolution.
Report thisBy anaman51, August 23, 2011 at 4:13 pm Link to this comment
The man is a buffoon of the first water, and I’m delighted to see him messing up the Republican order of things. I’m looking forward to the coming Republican convention with great anticipation. I could use a good laugh, and there ought to be plenty to laugh at, provided you’re not a Republican. Send in the clowns!
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, August 23, 2011 at 4:08 pm Link to this comment
Another reason to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.
He would elevate the discussion in the debates to one more befitting an advanced nation by addressing real issues.
Report thisBy EmileZ, August 23, 2011 at 1:42 pm Link to this comment
I just learned Bill Moyers is coming back with a new one-on-one show!!!!
The stars at night
are big and bright
Apparently PBS won’t carry it.
No suprise there.
Need To Know is such a joke that even its name is a cynical insult.
Report thisBy kanawah, August 23, 2011 at 12:40 pm Link to this comment
perry is the latest looney offering from the bowels of the far right Transylvania tea party.
He and his band of demons will destroy what is left of our nation if he should steal the election.
Report thisBy SoTexGuy, August 23, 2011 at 12:34 pm Link to this comment
Perry is sub-intellectual and a little nutty. He’s not dumb. Perry’s gaffes are intentional offerings to the hard core of the Republican and so-called Christian right that he’s courting and pandering to. Those are the people who will vote in the next election. Why should he attempt to please those who would not vote for him or perhaps not vote at all?
This is a lesson that Obama should take.. He believes he has all the Democrats in his pocket and voting for him simply because of the odious nature of Perry and most of the Republican field. So he repeatedly moves right to cut into a Republican base of which he has no chance of successfully wooing.
If the Republicans gain the White House next year and retain or grow their influence in Congress it will be because Obama and the Democrats in Congress have purposefully dismantled the near-miraculous coalition of voters that elected and empowered them. The remaining Obama loyalists are on the defensive.. and there is not a GW Bush in office to vote against.. except perhaps
Bush II, Obama himself.
It appears we may be on the way to an extremely contentious election in which a small minority of people will determine the outcomes.. I think this is so because I’ve always voted.. and was a passionate Obama supporter.. yet if the election were held now.. I’d write in Alfred E. Newman.
Adios!
Report thisBy Anarcissie, August 23, 2011 at 11:53 am Link to this comment
The one danger I see with people like Palin, Bachmann and Perry is that some kind of chicanery will be practiced whereby these persons, who could not win an election for president, could still get into the presidency. The most likely route would be through the vice-presidency, to which they would have been nominated in an effort to secure the right-wing religious vote.
If you look into Shirer’s The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich you will find that Hitler came to power, not through a head-to-head election, but through a similar species of chicanery in which the conservatives thought they could shore up their deteriorating position by using Hitler as a figurehead under their control. Hitler soon turned out to be more than a figurehead.
Under recent presidencies, including Obama’s, much of the Constitutional protection against arbitrary arrest, surveillance, search, seizure, and even assassination has been set aside in pursuit of the ‘War on Drugs’, the ‘War on Terror’ and other authoritarian adventures. Private armies and rentacops have multiplied. The way has been laid open.
Meanwhile, ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ squabble about how much funny money ought to be printed. It all seems too familiar if you’ve read any history.
Report thisBy Michael Cavlan RN, August 23, 2011 at 10:44 am Link to this comment
Jim Yell
You mean that you think that “democracy” in this country is fixed? Kabuki Theatre at it’s finest?
Funny that Truthdig continues to churn out one establishment hack journalist after another. Giving them “ink” here.
Why one would almost think that the Ed staff participate in the Kabuki Theatre.
Guess I can kiss off my Truthdigger of the Week Award now, eh?
Report thisBy felicity, August 23, 2011 at 9:56 am Link to this comment
But, and it’s a big ‘but,’ Perry has a contingency of
wealthy (probably Texans) funding his campaign. It’s
doubtful that if they disagreed with his zany political
platform they’d fund him. And, the supra-wealthy are
not known to willingly throw their money down a drain
so they must think he stands a chance of not only being
nominated but perhaps even elected president.
This should be very frightening.
Report thisBy dean1981, August 23, 2011 at 9:12 am Link to this comment
It will be interesting to see how Romney responds. He seems content to let Perry
garner all the attention for now. Unfortunately, rather than point to the success of
health care in MA, Romney is running away from a *success* story.
Using metrics like the Human Development Index, MA compares favorably to TX,
as this graph shows:
http://www.verisi.com/resources/decision2012.htm#s1
Report thisBy Jim Yell, August 23, 2011 at 9:01 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
There is a type of fishing in which people stand up from the fishing nets and scream and hollar and splash creating a commotion which drives the fish in panic to the nets to be caught and eaten.
Well as the only explaination beyond Chaos for our present situation is that both parties are working together and Corporate America is directing the tawdry display.
Obama as President has done nothing progressive, and certainly not Liberal and certainly not what he said he would do when getting elected. People have begun to notice too. So now it is time to convince people that he must be re-elected as the lest worst option.
After a life time of voting for the lest worst candidate I think it is time to stop voting for either of the two parties and look for a third party to support.
For some reason it appears corporate America decided they want Obama to fumble for 4 more years. Too help it along they have fielded the most insane group of prospective candidates, the most fringe and disreputable people to oppose his in the coming election process.
You know by the time the last election was finished, in which I voted for Obama, it seemed apparent that John McCain could not be stupid enough to deliberatly have chosen Sarah (I can see Russia) Palin as a running mate and his frequently explosive pronouncements seemed incredible unless they were deliberately to lose the election, or he was in early stages of senility.
Is this design or serendipity?
Report thisBy Marian Griffith, August 23, 2011 at 4:22 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The republican party likely only trots out the likes of Perry and Bachman so that their eventual candidate can look sane and moderate by comparison. It worked in Shrubs cabinet with Wolvowitz, whose only role seems to have been to make look Rumsfeld more reasonable by comparison. With Obama firmly entrenched in the center (as far as the voters are concerned, and what a sad state of affairs is that when even the democrats have swung far to the right of where the more outspoken part of the republicans was a few decades ago).
I am not entirely convinced though that the Democrats would be terribly upset if Obama were to loose against one of those mavericks. With the campaign season started even earlier than usual any chance of moderation has just flown the coop of the Washington politics.
2012 will just see more of Obama trying to maintain the status quo at all cost (and even more rabid attempts by republicans to obstruct even that little). The next president will have to deal with a crisis that has been aggravated by 4 years of neglect and 12 years of mismanagement. Europe will be lucky to help itself but will not take a leading role, and for all the vaunted (and rather self serving by the financial wizards who want us to give them money and have no interest in long term economical health) talk of China’s future that is not going to happen. China is full steam ahead at an ecological and social catastrophe (they have mismanaged their own country so badly that between pollution and soil degradation a famine is more likely than not within the next decade, and their social stability is fragile and only rests on terror and unrealistic economic growth figures).
Which all boils down to that 2013 is going to be an ‘interesting’ year (in the chinese curse meaning of interesting), and that it might be better to NOT be in power then.
Report thisOn the other hand, it is likely that within the next 5 years one or two of the more conservative (by standards of that august body) members of the supreme court are going to keel over. A democrat president might be able to create a majority for the next decade or so that on occasion considers the interests of the common population as opposed to be being the judicial arm of big corporations and big money.
By crysharris, August 22, 2011 at 9:35 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I don’t think the press is any good at predicting what resonates with the
American voter or with politicians, for that matter. 2012 is the Republicans to
lose, if they put up a candidate that speaks to average voters. Bachmann and
Perry make for interesting sound bites, but I would be surprised if they are the
eventual nominee. On the other hand, I was gobsmacked at Sarah Palin as VP
choice.
The Obama administration’s naive post-partisan utopia is a dismal failure and
the Democrats have been exposed as ineffectual, bungling, and lacking in
unity. They have so colossally mangled this term, both in Congress and the
White House, it will only be against a wide-eyed crazy like Bachmann that
Obama can hope to win.
Nevertheless, even a do-nothing (but execute Texans) Rick Perry stands to
appeal to more voters if can clean up his ranting by winter. He appeals to our
anger, our distrust of government, and our fear that the economy cannot
possible get better under current management.
Rick Perry is a joke, but he isn’t Mormon and he doesn’t seem as smug as
Report thisRomney. He’s attractive and way younger than Ron Paul. He has more ‘executive
experience’ and even though he’s far right, he doesn’t seem as insane as
Bachmann. Don’t ‘misunderestimate’ him.
By raja, August 22, 2011 at 8:50 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
14 more months of this bullshit. I’d break my TV, trash the computer and never look at a newspaper if I thought it would give relief. It won’t because the whole thing starts all over the day after the election in Nov ‘12.
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, August 22, 2011 at 8:42 pm Link to this comment
You have such great judgment, E,R…..
I can’t think back to any colum, when you have been right…about anything…
This is just another one of your colums, in which you take a swipe at those idiot
conservatives, who can’t win because their stupid, Rick Perry what an oaf…
Yet they have won..how did they turn Obamas presidency into a failure,if their so stupid?
Is it because the Democratic party is even more stupid? They took a smashing success
Report thisand turned it into shit because they betrayed those that voted for it.
By Anarcissie, August 22, 2011 at 6:48 pm Link to this comment
It’s like 13-year-olds watching a splatter movie. ‘Ooh—did you see that? All over the chandelier!’
Report thisBy Maani, August 22, 2011 at 6:21 pm Link to this comment
Why complain? Let the GOP bury themselves in their own assininity and ignorance. The only people who “buy” it are those who are equally assinine and ignorant - and that is NOT the majority of the American people: it is a segment (but NOT the whole) of the Tea Party.
As always, it IS the independents who are likely to determine the 2012 election - and they may not have much love for Obama, but they have even LESS love for a bunch of hyper-extremist, religiously radical flat-earthers.
Report thisBy Misfiteye, August 22, 2011 at 5:51 pm Link to this comment
You are talking about the same Republican Party that offered us Mr. Magoo and Barbie, right?
Report this