Sunday, August 14, 2011

Rick Perry's Ruthless Drive to Win

Fellow Texassican Paul Begala nails Goodhair's hide to the barn door:

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. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.

Mitt Romney should be shaking in his Guccis.

Rick Perry threw his hair in the ring on Saturday. [...] He can rally the base as well as Michele Bachmann, and he will say or do anything—annnnnnnyyyyyyything—to win. And in today’s Republican Party, if you want to be the nominee you have to be willing to do some really crazy s--t.

Snippetry:

Like the defendant in a Stalinist show trial, Mitt has renounced everything about his prior life:
...

When you’re more open to secession than Jefferson Davis was a century and a half ago, well, you've gone pretty far.
...

Perry will claim that Texas leads the nation in jobs created. As a joke currently circulating in the Lone Star State puts it, “Sure, Perry has created thousands of jobs. I'm working three of them.”
...

Perry has flaws, huge flaws. Not the least of which is that he presided over the execution of one of his constituents, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was probably innocent. But I’m not sure that's a liability in today's Tea Party–obsessed GOP. There’s a legend in Lone Star politics that one of Perry’s Republican rivals in Texas tested the Willingham issue in a focus group. One Republican man, the story goes, squinted and said, “Well, I like that. Takes a lot of balls to execute an innocent man.”

That last line speaks volumes about what we're up against.

Update:

Tea-Paw's out, Perry's in. Apparently in the can of worms called the Repug primary, when one slithers in at the bottom, one's gotta squirt out at the top.


1 comment:

Fixer said...

Yeah, and Perry fixed Texas' budget deficit by using the stimulus money meant to put people to work, though he makes it out like he's some sort of financial genius. Texas - the land of opportunity, if "opportunity" means $4/hour busting your ass, no health care, and the worst air pollution in the country. A "Worker's Paradise" if I ever saw one.