Rick Perry was the man with a bullseye on his back going into the debate last Thursday night. If the results of the straw poll conducted in Florida after his dismal debate performance are any indication — watch that clip above starting at about 1:30 and you’ll see the Texas Governor almost appeared drunk or noticeably medicated when responding to some questions — he’s been taken out:
Cain carried 37% of the vote, Perry 15% and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney 14%. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum was at 11%, Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 10% and former House speaker Newt Gingrich at 9%. Trailing far behind were former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, at 2%.
It’s a real toss-up who my conservative friends secretly fear most with nukes, Sarah Palin or Herman Cain, not to mention Cain is an abrasive idiot, the rest of the field has other problems with one exception. That leaves Mittens as the most likely GOP candidate and that’s not a good thing. Romney could actually win.
Don’t anyone kid themselves that conservative voters will stay home in protest, afraid of the Mormon or the moderate in Mitt Romney. By the time the election rolls around, Romney will be portrayed in the wingnut parallel universe as a fire-breathing, second coming of Ronald Reagan and Obama will be Pol Pot and Josef Stalin rolled into one. Perry would be lot easier to beat in the general, and a HELL of a lot more fun to cover, but any more showings like that and his star will fall from the sky.
As far as Cain goes (or Michael Steele, promptly after the 2008 election), remember that these are the same people who are convinced that the only reason Obama won was that people voted for him because he was black.
The ability to register the most obvious conditions of that election–Obama is a diligent and brainy guy who ran an extremely well-organized campaign against an elderly political hack, his media-hog twit of a running mate and a party that had spent the previous eight years crapping the bed–is apparently overwhelmed by their obsession with the man’s race.
Anyway, because these folks (unlike pretty much everyone who did vote for Obama) are comfortable with the idea of voting for someone simply because he’s black, AND because they’re rather desperate to establish that they aren’t racist, they are motivated to vote for the AAs in their camp, as doing so allows them to say “I’m no racist! I voted for a black man!” (Did you think he was the best qualified? “Didn’t you hear me? I VOTED for a black! You can never call me racist again! Now, about that birth certificate . . .”)
The weirdest thing about racism (IMO) is that racists don’t know they’re racist. (1) I think maybe that’s because everyone thinks of their level of comfort with people who don’t look like them as a normative and neutral view of race; by extension (from that individual’s POV), people who are less comfortable are racists, whereas people who are more comfortable are not neutral, but in fact favor other races. If this is the case, from the viewpoint of the sort of people who are freaked out to have a black POTUS, people did vote for him for being black, in the sense that they weren’t inhibited from doing so by what the racists view as neutral/normal reactions to race.
____
(1) Initially, I thought it might be like the Dunning-Kruger model for incompetence. Only the D-K model holds that some people just don’t have/can’t get a clue as to what competence looks like. As described above, I’m guessing that the obliviousness of racism has a different mechanism.
Perry was neither drunk nor on medication. He really is that dull witted.
Perry was neither drunk nor on medication. He really is that dull witted.
docsarvis: As his predecessor in office was Dubya, you might think that being a simpering, God-bothering half-wit was a requirement for being Governor of Texas.
But this is the same state that gave us Ann Richards. Also, Molly Ivins. (God, I miss both of them.) So maybe it’s a Republican thing.
Perry is clearly suffering from high-altitude cerebral edema. Cloudy thinking, slurring of words…
He needs to get down to a lower altitude immediately. He could start by getting off his high horse.
Honestly I’ve only seen clips of Perry and his performance. It’s not even funny, he has no idea how to debate or even talk in a debate. Why does half the country want to vote for whatever fool the right puts up?
What hurt Perry even more is that he decided to take the not-insane position on one issue rather then hold the line. It’s rather depressing that in today’s republican party you will get cheers for executing the most people in history, denying science or forcing your religion into government, but just dare to hint that undocumented immigrants are also human beings and you’re done.