Rick Perry scores a zero

And so it begins.

The ad opens like a trailer for a zombie movie: empty, desolate streets and shops, a storm siren blaring. Obama's iconic "O" symbol is then replaced with a zero, as various clips of television reporters talking about "zero jobs created" play.

The ad's mood then shifts dramatically. "In 2012 America will discover a new name for leadership," the ad says, while clips of Perry are spliced with shots of galloping horses in the sunlight, American flags, green farms and the Statue of Liberty.

Honestly, I thought I was watching the trailer for the new "Blade Runner".

Perry's new ad seems ripped straight from a sci-fi thriller, complete with labeling Obama "President Zero." And his message hits you on the head with a hammer: "NO JOBS CREATED!" yells the ad. One especially unsettling moment shows Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama poster literally disintegrating on a wall ...

Sure hope the president and his team are getting ready to fight.

The most powerful part of the ad may be the economic statistics, including the new poverty numbers from last week, which don’t need portentous music to sound grim. The “President Zero” line was introduced by the Republican National Committee, a few weeks ago. There’s another Republican debate Thursday night—another opportunity for the candidates to engage in vaccine denialism and cheer the prospective execution, tonight in Georgia, of a man whose guilt has been called into doubt, but also another chance for the G.O.P. to test various angles from which to attack in the general election. Perry’s extremism may ultimately cause his party to turn away from him, but his ad gives an idea of the direction any Republican is likely to take: the dominant sentiment, for all the Americana, is not one of nostalgia, but of fear.

Nader's rationale

Updating the previous post -- it's a little long already and Matt in the comments wants to steer it off topic, as usual -- here is Ralph Nader on Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word last night explaining his reasons for holding what I will call a 'topics primary challenge' to Obama.

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I agree with everything Nader says here. If this is the exclusive premise for his tack (no agenda to turn it into another Quixotic bid for the White House), then I can get firmly behind it. Nader and I would still disagree about working within the Republican-Democratic duopoly for progressive change as opposed to without, but there's certainly no reason why both couldn't happen at the same time.

Here's the letter (.pdf) his group has written to the "slate of potential primary challengers", and here's a sample from the announcement:

The letter points to numerous decisions that have drawn criticism from Obama’s own Democratic Party including his decision to bail out Wall Street’s most profitable firms while failing to push for effective prosecution of the criminal behavior that triggered the recession, escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan while simultaneously engaging in a unilateral war in Libya, his decision to extend the Bush era tax cuts, and his acquiescence to Republican extortion during the recent debt ceiling negotiations.

“Robust debate on the crucial issues facing our nation, including global environmental devastation, should characterize all races for national public office and the Democratic presidential primaries are no exception,” said Brent Blackwelder, President Emeritus of Friends of the Earth. “The public needs to hear whether a second term Obama will be like the first term Obama, or perhaps more like the 2008 presidential candidate Obama or something else altogether.”

I'm in. Let's have that conversation with the president and not just at him. Compel his attendance and participation, and make him listen. That's a very worthwhile objective in our republican democracy.

Otherwise, the 2012 campaign -- the next thirteen and one-half months -- is going to be the same old weekly Republican freak right debate, where TeaBaggers cheer death and corporate takeovers, and the Congress bogs down in another squabble with repetitive conservative talking points and FOX-News-buzzworthy phrases ("class warfare" is this week's poll-tested one).

Otherwise, Obama is reduced to what's he been doing ever since he was elected: forced to defensively respond to some right-wing lunacy. Birth certificates, death panels, job creators, Ponzi scheme, blah blah blah. In other words, losing.

And I'm not in on that.

But hey, don't feel bad if you don't get it; Russ Feingold apparently doesn't either.