Rick Perry's no good, very bad week

It's only been a week and a half since Governor Profit was praised to the heavens -- or at least to the inside of Reliant Stadium's roof -- and already Republicans of all stripes seem to be worn out with his Texas charm. Just look at this list of news stories in the days since last Saturday's Iowa straw poll:

The cultural right was miffed that he didn't want to beat the shit out of brown kids, having signed the Texas version of the DREAM Act into law. The Wall Street right, thinking they had their guy, recoiled in horror as Perry boasted of beating the shit out of Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke if he made his way down to Texas.

Suddenly, that GOP establishment isn't looking too favorably on the Texan. The Bush crowd, still a dominant force in the Republican Party, has led the assault. Even the Wall Street Journal got in on the act, running this headline with apparently no intended irony: "Rick Perry's Crony Capitalism Problem".

The WSJ is just now discovering Rick Perry has a crony capitalist problem?! Maybe Rupert Murdoch's cellphone hackers were too busy with other people.

Just today, these items.

-- The governor's theory on the theory of evolution draws scorn in the Granite State.

-- Ron Paul laughingly declares that Perry "makes me look like a moderate", and then proceeds to dynamite his own premise by saying:

"I have never once said that Bernanke has committed treason. But I have suggested very strongly that the Federal Reserve system and all the members have been counterfeiters for a long time."

To wild applause from the assembled Paulites.

-- Perry can’t defend his claim to a woman in a cafe' that Social Security is unconstitutional because he’s ‘got a big mouthful’ of delicious New Hampshire popover. (Forget those nasty veggie corndogs; popovers are the shiznit.)

-- His spokesperson Ray Sullivan denies ever knowing that Perry, in fact, has said that Social Security was unconstitutional.

This on the heels of Karl Rove's broadsides, and the investment the governor made in a porn film distribution business, a story our very own Burnt Orange Report broke in 1995. (It's nice when the media finds what we've been writing for years, isn't it?)

Nothing about secession or Al Gore, but plenty about his record as a twenty-five-year career politician. Ben Sherman has some additional linkage on the governor's week from hell, and Katherine Haenschen notes that The Response attendees are being targeted for voter registration efforts. Additional proof that the prayer event wasn't a political rally, of course.

That kind of assault might ironically help Perry—one of his biggest liabilities is the perception that he's the establishment choice in a decidedly anti-establishment year—but it doesn't solve the problem of those DC and Wall Street Republicans looking for someone electable in the general election.

Now to be clear, that establishment would be happy enough with Mitt Romney. He's a hedge fund manager's wet dream, and party bosses who actually want to beat President Barack Obama in 2012 can point to polling showing Romney giving Obama the toughest challenge (by a long shot). But they all also know Romney ain't getting past the teabagger crowd. So who is that magic person who can win the nomination and still be electable nationally in the general?

Perry ain't it. They've obviously concluded that. Hence the rampant speculation today that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and anti-Medicare jihadist Rep. Paul Ryan might be exploring the race.

Next?

PerryforPresidentFML.com

Must share this news of Progress Texas' hard work. (If you're the sort that's had trouble understanding what Twitter is all about, this will help you get it: geek fighting for a new generation.)

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When it became clear months ago that Rick Perry was headed for a presidential run, Matt Glazer and Mark Corcoran at Progress Texas — no fans of Texas’ longest-serving governor — reacted to the news the way you might if, say, you found out you needed 10 fillings. Or your boss threw a can of SpaghettiOs at your head. Or your kids pulled your pants down at the circus.

“FML.”

At PerryForPresidentFML.com, the liberal activist group is gathering all the factoids they can find about the troubled state of Texas after a decade under Perry’s watch, and spitting them out on Twitter with the #PerryFML hashtag.

Since the weekend, as Rick Perry’s rising star carried @RickPerryFacts and TwitPics of the governor eating a corn dog along with it, #PerryFML has been swept up too.

The Perry facts in rotation include:

Peter Wagner endorsed Perry’s “Response.” He advocates putting the gov’t under christian rule & burning statues of catholic saints #PerryFML

Rick Perry’s 2011 budget cut funding for the Texas Armed Services Scholarship Program #PerryFML http://ht.ly/5ZaqW

“We just did a shallow hit on what his record is — we wanted to make it something that’s easy to share,” said Glazer, the group’s executive director.

“We sort of expected it to be a very slow build,” Glazer said, but within days of Perry’s announcement that he’d launch a campaign, he said, they saw the hashtag take off. “What we expected to be a couple month-long process and really not be used till 2012, it started in 48 hours.”

Each day this week, Glazer said, they’ve maxed out the 1,500-tweet limit on the free Hashtracking account that let them follow the #PerryFML wave. Just based on those hits, though, Corcoran said they’re getting 1.8 million impressions.

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Head on over and spread the wealth.

TP less popular than atheists, Muslims

Everybody weirded out of the crazy eyed, spinning pictures? Yeah, me too.

Turns out the rest of the country is just as sick of these TeaBagging assholes as you and I are.

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

Well, nobody could have predicted that, now could they?

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

Another 'duh' moment.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

Hellloooo. That's why we have all of these Wars going on -- the War on Women, the War on Poor People. Ah, but here comes the coup de gras ...

On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history.

Look at that: the Tea Party is nothing more than a bunch of dirty fucking hippies who found religion -- and ultra-conservatism and bigotry and hate -- in their dotage.

To quote some of their miserable ilk: 'time for this bad experiment in government to come to an end'.

Corn dogs are making me dizzy

Bachmann-eyes'd

More here.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that the nation remembers Molly Ivins' words about Texas governors as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that the Voting Rights Act is squarely in the sight of Texas Republicans as they try to get their gerrymandered maps approved.

As Texas Governor Rick Perry (R - idiculous) officially enters the race for President, Letters From Texas presents Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Perry, But Were Afraid To Ask.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson warns that a Rick Perry presidential run should not be taken lightly, because if elected he would be Bush on Steroids.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks that Rick Perry (r-Dominionist) is just a puppet for the true leaders of the slow moving mob of republican fanatics.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw gives us a quick summary of Good Hair's presidential creds in The Success of Rick Perry.

Do the King Street Patriots -- via the Texas Secretary of State -- intend to turn away veterans at the polls? It looks as if they do, and Open Source Dem at Brains and Eggs has the details.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted on Rick Perry's conflicted views about gay marriage. If you read pages 26 and 27 of the hardcover edition Rick Perry's book Fed Up!, you will see that his social conservatism and his extreme states' rights views are not compatible. Both Rick Perry's far-right backers and his centrist and liberal opponents should note this dramatic inconsistency.

McBlogger takes a look at S&P and finds them wanting.

Rick Perry ads through the years

Sadly, the cowboy hat and the assless chaps went by the wayside -- along with "the best schools in America"-- a long time ago.



Update: Now we know why the camera in the very first ad is positioned at belt-buckle level:

I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch.

Those first, early ones remind me of Lyle here:

Sunday Funnies

Ames to ... please?

Out of 16,892 straws drawn, Michele Bachmann won 4,823 (28.6%) to Ron Paul's 4,671 (27.7%). Tim Pawlenty, who had focused on a strong showing in the straw poll to rescue his struggling campaign, finished a distant third with 2,293 (13.6%) in a bruising setback. Bumping along behind the horses in the money, garnering in the high single digits percentage-wise, were Rick Santorum and Herman Cain.

Mitt Romney, who won this beauty contest four years ago, declined to defend his title and came in seventh with 3.3%. He trailed even a non-attending write-in candidate.

Yes. The front-runner for the national campaign lost to ...

Governor Prophet earned 718 write-ins and 4%, yet chose to make his long-anticipated entry to the GOP presidential primary from over a thousand miles away from Iowa -- in the cradle of American secession -- but at virtually the same moment the candidates in Ames began speaking.

Romney's brand of Republican moderation will play a little better in New Hampshire, but this is essentially a three-man, one-woman contest already.

Despite what The Grifter from Wasilla may interpret from the concurrent 'corn kernel' poll.

Separately, attendees voted in a corn kernel poll, which measures the support of each Republican by the number of kernels in their respective Mason jar. By late morning, the kernel level in Sarah Palin’s jar rose just above the best-known GOP candidates — even though the former Alaska governor has not declared her intentions yet for 2012.

"There is still plenty of room in that field for common-sense conservatives who have executive experience," Palin said during a fair visit. "Watching the debate not just last night but watching this whole process over the last year it certainly shows me that yeah, there is plenty of room for more people."

Yeah. Yeah!

Update: Ted with more. Oh, and Pawlenty gives up his seat in the clown car.

So long, T-Paw. We hardly knew ye.

Update II: Is Rick Perry man enough to gobble a corn dog, thereby rescuing Michele Bachmann from the vicious sexism leveled at her by the global online community?

Update III: Praise God.

Do the King Street Patriots intend to turn away veterans at the polls?

Open Source Dem recently made a presentation to Harris County Democrats about the challenges facing them with regard to the new election law requirements surrounding voter registration, voter ID, and the like. Here's a synopsis.

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There is one piece of news and three main messages to bring back from the Secretary of State’s 29th Annual Election Law Seminar in Austin.

The SoS reiterated for voter registrars and election officials that the voter ID requirement, which can be met with a vaguely-defined “military identity card”, does not include the photo ID issued to military veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA card is not issued by the US Department of Defense. The Veterans Administration -- now the Department of Veterans’ Affairs -- headed by General Shinseki is now a cabinet-level office, second in number of employees only to the DoD itself.

The VA card is a high-value and high-quality photo ID document linked to medical and military records. It is not a voting credential in its own right, since like any other military identification document, it may be issued to a non-citizen. Still, as a practical matter it is probably a better authentication document than a DPS-issued card. Of course buried in all of this voter ID business is nothing more or less than a constant demand that people who do not look like Republican voters produce arcane documents to prove again and again that they are not just eligible and registered to vote but that they are “qualified” to vote in in the eyes of hostile clerks who suspect, but cannot prove, they are not convicts or wards.

The VA card is reasonably “a United States military identification card that contains the person’s photograph that has not expired or that expired no earlier than 60 days before the date of presentation”, to quote the statute. As with other military identification cards, it does not expire except at death, but can be revoked. That is how much real understanding of authentication matters the legislature or the Governor’s office truly have: none. Revocation, expiration, what’s the difference? A lot!

But what the GOP, the Tea Party, and the King Street Patriots do understand is voter suppression.

Indeed, the VA card is the second most common form of photo ID after the Texas driver’s license (which does expire). The GOP is limiting access to the polls any and every way they can with no pushback from the Democratic echelons or branches of government. Is there a suffrage lobby or movement today? Evidently not.

So what do Texas Democrats really care about? A VA hospital in the Rio Grande valley? Or a statewide voter registration program for homeless veterans? Perhaps a full measure of dignity and recognition for all veterans presenting themselves to vote? Here’s a clue: Democrats will never benefit from the first two unless they can provide the third of these.

The VA is recognized in Texas election law as one of the two federal authorities for exempting a person from the photo ID requirement altogether, although it is inconceivable that an exempt veteran would not have a VA card. Catch 22. How much more military than that can you get?

What is not news is that the voter ID requirement has nothing to do with authenticating voters and all the world to do with levying costly economic and often impassable physical barriers to suffrage: a poll tax, in so much legal verbosity.

It is not clear what if any response the Democratic Party or the Obama administration will have to any of this. So far they have contributed to the legal verbosity and, of course, capitulated to the Secretary of State.

Update:

State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) and Charlie Jones of Texas Democratic Veterans will host a press conference to discuss the Texas Secretary of State’s interpretation of the GOP-backed voter ID bill (SB 14) to bar the VA benefit card as an acceptable form of military ID. The press conference will take place Friday, August 12, 2011, at VFW Post #76, 10 Tenth Street, San Antonio TX.

Republicans square off in Iowa debate tonight

Here's the advance from Chris Cillizza. Jon Huntsman will be the new face in the first GOP face-off since June. No Rick Perry in Ames -- despite his attempt to upstage the event -- and no Palin.

The star of the show is likely to be Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who's been riding a wave of momentum since her strong performance in the June debate in New Hampshire. Polling shows Bachmann running strong in Iowa and she is the favorite to win Saturday's Ames Straw Poll.

Bachmann's rise over the past two months ensures she will be on the receiving end of barbs from her rivals as they seek to slow her progress. How she handles the slings and arrows will be a major storyline to watch.

The other person to keep an eye on is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney enters the debate as the frontrunner for the nomination. But he won't be competing in the straw poll over the weekend and is de-emphasizing the Iowa caucuses in his plans to win the nomination. Expect the other people on stage to mock Romney's on-again, off-again plans in the state.

The Iowa caucuses are still months away, but debates are rare moments when voters pay attention long enough to compare and contrast. Any winner in this one gets media and money.

Romney's "Corporations are people, too" gaffe is liable to hurt him. If not among the other oligarchs on the stage, then with conservatives and independents who aren't so inclined to feel empathy for the INCs and the LLCs and the PCs and so on. Surely there are some of those somewhere ...

The debate will be showing everywhere you care (or don't) to watch on your teevee -- or online -- this evening.

Update: More from The Ticket ...

Tomorrow, Sarah Palin, who is flirting with her own White House bid, will revive her bus tour in Iowa, visiting the state fair in Des Moines, and threatening to upstage other GOP hopefuls in the state. On Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will officially declare his intentions to run for president in South Carolina--a speech that happens to be scheduled on the same day as the Ames straw poll.


A week from now, we will likely know more about the make-up of the so-far volatile GOP field. Can Rommey hold on to his position as frontrunner? Is Perry the savior many GOP voters are looking for? Can Pawlenty gain enough momentum to save his lackluster campaign? Will Ron Paul be taken seriously? And can Huntsman and Newt Gingrich—two candidates whose campaigns have fallen short of expectations—survive? Is Palin even running?

Here's a quick look at what's at stake for some of the leading GOP contenders ...

One of the reasons I objected to The Response

Because I also know first-hand how filled with love many Christians are.

The Fox News Facebook page got over 8,000 death threats posted on its wall after the communications director for the group American Atheists, Blair Scott, appeared on the network’s “America Live” discussing the group’s lawsuit hoping to stop the erection of a crucifix at the World Trade Center Memorial.

The admins of Fox’s Facebook page worked furiously to delete the hateful posts, but not before the atheist blogger behind One Man’s Blog managed to capture screenshots, some of which we’ve reproduced below.

Organizers of the 9/11 museum feel that the cross, which is a symbol of hope for many, should have a place at the memorial. And then there are those other folks who passionately disagree with Scott’s group and who are behaving in a manner that is contrary to their religion fundamentals.

Christians are up in arms about Blair’s television appearance and have waged an all-out war against his possibly blocking the memorial’s plans. Reportedly, by the time Blair returned to his office, his voicemail was full to capacity with threat messages from Christians who were seething with hatred.