By Patrick
Sarah Palin might be "THE big Elephant in the GOP tent", as Joe McGinniss wrote yesterday, but the GOP tent is now in real danger to get stomped on by another elephant, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who yesterday announced his candidacy to become the next US President.
His announcement appears to be a real game changer and a huge problem for Sarah Palin, as Rick Perry already proved that he has no hesitation to steal all her talking points, and behave "more presidential" at the same time. In his announcement speech yesterday in South Carolina, he sounded like a mixture between G.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and he also fully embraced Sarah Palin's well-known talking points - but his vocabulary doesn't appear as limited as the one of the Ice Queen from Wasilla.
If you want to hear a politician talking for example about
- cutting spending
- creating new jobs
- keeping the taxes low
- strengthening private enterprises
- President Obama being a big failure
- military, military, military
- American exceptionalism
- America always coming first
- protection of American interests in the world
- Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill
- praying for America
- family values
- repealing healthcare
- protecting unborn life
and so on, you don't have to listen to the fame-whoring screech from Wasilla any more. As Rick Perry made clear in his announcement speech, he embraces all these points - what a coincidence that is.
Watch (there is also good commentary at the end of the second MSNBC clip):
In addition, you get a "real politician", and not a wannabe who quit her job when the going got tough.
Rick Perry's talking points seem to be a re-hash of G.W. Bush in 2000 and certainly don't offer solutions to the current economic crisis in the USA, but they raise an important question: Is there still room for Sarah Palin after Rick Perry entered the race? I truly don't believe there is.
Even hardcore Palin-supporters will soon realise that not only the talking points are basically identical, but that Rick Perry also instantly appears much more "presidential." In their eyes, he could be the "strong man" that the USA currently needs. Unlike Sarah Palin and her equally fame-whoring daughter Bristol, Rick Perry is not overexposed yet, but a "fresh face", so to speak. Despite his highly questionable record as the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry at least is a sitting Governor since 2000, and the State of Texas is of huge importance for the presidential election.
After his announcement, some interesting details came to light: After Mike Huckabee refused to get in the race a few months ago, Rick Perry was urged by evangelical leaders to enter the race, CNN reports:
Many of the activists checking in with Shackelford are concerned that Pawlenty and Bachmann, the other Republican candidates popular among conservative evangelicals, aren’t generating enough support and have limited appeal outside the evangelical subculture.
“They want a candidate who is not only socially and fiscally conservative, but who could actually raise money,” says Shackelford. “Perry can bridge the establishment and grass roots sides of the party and that’s really hard to find.”
Perry, who has presided over a state that has seen strong job growth amid the economic downturn, is considered popular among business groups.
“Rick Perry has the potential to energize tea party and social conservatives, as well as attract endorsements and contributions from GOP donors and elected officials,” said Ralph Reed, who leads the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Not unlike another Texas governor, George W. Bush, he can bridge the establishment wing of the party and the conservative grass roots,” said Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition. “That’s quite a combination, and my sense is he will reshuffle this race in a significant way.”
Romney, the current establishment favorite, is unpopular among many conservative Christian activists because of his onetime support for abortion rights and because of a health care law he signed as governor of Massachusetts that mandates coverage.
And Romney, a Mormon, faces obstacles in connecting with evangelical voters along religious lines, as Perry, Pawlenty and Bachmann appear to be doing.
“I got involved in The Response three or four months ago and at that time, the Perry for president push was not the issue," said Garlow, who is supporting Newt Gingrich for president but is disappointed at the former House Speaker's performance so far. "It became that way primarily after Huckabee pulled his name out of the race.”
Indeed, many conservative activists began calling on Perry to run only after former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced in May that he would not seek the White House.
“I was astounded at the pressure on him to run - you felt it building and we were trying to plan this prayer event and we’re saying, ‘How do we keep this out of politics because this is about Christ?' ”
The American people of course also don't believe that Sarah Palin is presidential material, as for example the latest CNN poll from August 5-7 revealed again (click to enlarge):
In addition, the latest Fox News Poll revealed that a whopping 74% of Independents and even 58% of Republicans believe that Sarah Palin "would not make a good President" (click to enlarge):
So wouldn't it be great if actually Sarah Palin became the Republican nominee, as she is polling so badly on a regular basis - wouldn't that be fantastic for the Democrats? Shouldn't they actually work FOR Palin in order to enhance her chances? Shouldn't the anti-Palin bloggers just shut up?
NO, of course not. Sarah Palin is a mentally unstable, ignorant, reckless, narcissistic and vindictive woman, whose main ambition in life is to fight against her real and perceived enemies, basically anyone who doesn't adore her. She already caused a lot of damage to the political culture. Such a person would be highly destructive for any civilised society. Even though her chances to win the election would be slim, a successful primary would give her the chance to poison the political climate even more. Not even for tactical reasons should she be allowed in a position to seriously run for the presidency.
James C. Moore, another commentator at CNN, sees Rick Perry already heading for the White House. While it may very well be the case that Perry could soon the be the Republican frontrunner, Moore comes to a peculiar conclusion at the end, when he writes:
Fueled only by speculation that he might announce, Perry became the putative front-runner (heard that word at a fancy Washington restaurant and thought it was cool). Because presidential politics tend to be more visceral than intellectual, Perry's coyote-killer good looks, $2,000 hand-tooled cowboy boots, supernova smile and Armani suits, combined with podium skills to embellish the mythology of Texas, all will create a product Americans will want to believe and buy.
After he wins the nomination, protocol will require Perry to have discussions with Bachmann about the vice presidential slot, but he will, eventually, turn to Sarah Palin. The general election will force the Texan back toward the middle and he will stop talking about faith and abortion and gay marriage; Perry will campaign on jobs and the economy.
Palin, who is loved by the tea party as much as Perry, will keep the Teavangelicals animated while he tries to talk to the adults to win the election on a single issue: the economy, stupiderest!!! (Forget about Rudy Giuliani; the GOP cannot win New York, don't need it to take the election and Giuliani is wrong on gay marriage for this ticket).
No way! Somebody clearly didn't pay attention. It would be suicidal for Rick Perry to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate, as should be evident from all the past events (James C. Moore apparently also needs to educate himself about the long list of Sarah Palin's scandals, which are ticking time bombs).
In fact, Rick Perry already made clear who his favourite would be, and consequently announced his candidacy in her home state: South Carolina's Governor Nikki Haley. They already wrote an op-ed together for the Washington Post in July 2011 about the "cap, tax and balance pledge", titled "Break the spend-and-borrow cycle", and Nikki Haley quickly called the timing of Rick Perry's announcement in her home state "brilliant."
Sarah Palin is not on board. In fact, she was clearly annoyed that she didn't know that Rick Perry would announce, as was evident from her remarks yesterday which were reported by Scott Conroy:
I am certain that it's out of the question that Sarah Palin would be Rick Perry's running mate.
Right now, it appears that Sarah Palin out manouvered herself. Andrew Sullivan thinks that she wants to wait with her announcement after the books by Joe McGinniss and Levi Johnston have been published, and that may very well be true. Andrew Sullivan wrote:
My bet is she'll wait till after Levi's and McGinniss's books come out. And she'll leverage her campaign as a victim of the evil media.
But I cannot know, of course. All I know is that Palin craves attention and believes she has been chosen by God to lead the nation. Bowing out of the race is the end of her fifteen minutes. My bet is she wants a few more hours.
By the way, I don't think that Michele Bachmann has a serious chance. She bought herself the victory at this ridiculous straw poll in Iowa with giving away 4000 free tickets, which otherwise would have cost $30 each. Americans don't want a crazy lady with an even more embarrassing husband as their president. I believe that Rick Perry will start to dominate the polls as far as the radical right-wing base is concerned, as the main opponent to Mitt Romney.
The crazy lady from Wasilla then will need a new purpose in life. But she will probably just go on for decades complaining about how she was destroyed by the evil media, repeating this mantra like a broken record. Fortunately, we then don't need to listen to her any more and can concentrate on more pleasant things in life again.
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UPDATE:
Fortunately, Rick Perry's gaffes already started while he was in college. If you put one of his college pictures and a historical picture of Adolf Hitler side-by-side, this is what we get (click to enlarge). I just couldn't resist to create this photo comparison.
I don't want to say that Rick Perry is a Nazi, but let's be serious for a moment - can you imagine what the right-wingers would have done if they had found a similar picture of Barack Obama...?
Rick Perry - Adolf Hitler (click to enlarge)
UPDATE 2:
While Perry's college pictures are just what they are, old pictures, and while it's also not Rick Perry's fault that the uniform very closely resembles a Nazi uniform, it is worth pointing out that the right-wingers also discovered the pictures today, and that they not only love them, but also had no hesitation to immediately compare them to Barack Obama's college pictures, in order to prove that Obama was just a stoned hippie at college, unlike Rick Perry. So it is fair to point out in my view that Perry's picture is actually rather unfortunate.
UPDATE 3:
Our photo-comparison is starting to make the rounds.
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