The Karl Rove Pot and the Rick Perry Kettle

Republicans must really hate each other. Today, Karl Rove called Rick Perry's position on social security "toxic." What's next? Is Dick Cheney going to call Michele Bachmann "evil?"

Bring on Rick Perry

The Obama administration thinks that Mitt Romney is going to win the Republican nomination, but I bet they're hoping that the GOP chooses Rick Perry instead.

Obama surrogate Paul Begala is certainly chomping at the bit:

Does Michele Bachmann make conservative crowds swoon by saying the Lord told her to study tax law? Meh. Perry gathers 30,000 people to a controversial Christian
prayer rally. In Houston. In August. One veteran Texas politico told me, “The guy is Elmer Gantry. He could take over a conservative megachurch tomorrow and outpreach the pastor . . .

Perry told The Daily Beast's Andrew Romano that Social Security is “a Ponzi scheme,” and that both it and Medicare are unconstitutional. Never mind that the Supreme Court recently ruled that Social Security is perfectly constitutional . . .

Perry has already flirted with secession. Secession? Even Jefferson Davis opposed secession when he was a senator from Mississippi. When you’re more open to secession than Jefferson Davis was a century and a half ago, well, you've gone pretty far . . .

Begala is so pumped about running against Rick Perry that he was almost ready to run himself.

Candidates on the far right like Perry, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann are always claiming that Barack Obama or "the left" is afraid of them. But the opposite is the case. Rick Perry represents everything that is ignorant, bigoted, wrong-headed, and immoral about the conservative movement in this country. Begala's phrase for all of that is "bat shit crazy" and he's itching to oppose him.

So am I.

Lady Gaga to Speak at Rick Perry's "Day of Prayer?"

Before Texas governor Rick Perry became this week's Great White Hope for the Republican presidential nomination, he organized a National Day of Prayer for this Saturday.

There are a lot of questions associated with the event. Should Perry be inviting gay-baiting hate groups like the American Family Association? That question can also be asked about flame-throwing religious figures like John Hagee of "the Holocaust was a good thing because it brings us closer to the Apocalypse" fame.

Likewise, wouldn't identifying with the religious right undermine Perry with independents and moderates if he won the GOP nomination? According to Alex Castellanos:

One thing Republicans are going to demand this election is a candidate who can beat Barack Obama . . . The election is all about him. A candidate who establishes his identity on the fringe, talking about social and religious issues, when the economy is going over a cliff, risks marginalizing himself, becoming unacceptable to independents and unelectable. That would be the kiss of death.

And Alex Castellanos knows extremism, having made his career by doing racist ads for Jesse Helms during Helms' last Senate campaign.

Another problem is that Perry booked 65,000 seat Reliant stadium but only has 8,000 reservations. As Bobby Jindal could tell him, epic fails are real buzz-killers.

But the biggest question hanging over Rick Perry's Day of Prayer is whether Lady Gaga is going to make an appearance.

It certainly seems like Perry is teasing a Gaga performance.

"There will be folks who think it's [politics], that there are other motivations. But it's not about me," Perry said. "It's about Him," the exact same divinity Lady Gaga references in "Born This Way."

"It doesn't matter if you love him/or capital H-I-M."

Perhaps Perry had an inspiration while singing along with Gaga's lyrics (what rising politician doesn't think "you're on the right track baby, you were born this way?) and decided to put out an invitation to the hottest singer on the planet.

Now THAT would be a sensational way to launch a presidential campaign.

Clever of Perry to keep it a secret so long.

Rick Perry's "Gay Marriage Reparative Therapy"

Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn't announced yet, but the Rick Perry For President campaign has begun in earnest as Perry seeks to mend fences with the most determined haters in the social conservative movement--professional gay rights opponents.

Perry had to mend fences because he responded to the passage of gay marriage in New York by saying something that sounded vaguely like acceptance.

“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said that marriage can be between two people of the same sex and you know what that is New York and that is their business and that is fine with me, that is their call. If you believe in the tenth amendment, stay out of their business”.

That quote was a problem for Perry because of the particular nature of his candidacy.

Rick Perry's No. 1 strategy for the Republican primaries is to beat out Michele Bachmann for the position of social conservative/Tea Party candidate and then edge Mitt Romney over the long haul.

And it's a viable strategy.

Mitt Romney is a very weak frontrunner who is incredibly vulnerable to negative advertising and many social conservative groups would tend to support Perry over any woman not named Sarah Palin. As a result, Perry has a definite path to the nomination.

But social conservatives are just as opposed to gay rights as George Wallace was opposed to civil rights for African-Americans and Rick Perry was denounced by Rick Santorum and others for his "appeasement."

So it was onto the haters for a little "gay marriage reparative therapy."

Today, Perry stopped by the radio program of Tony Perkins, the head of America's most respected hate group, the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because they publish inflammatory material that claims that gay people belong in jail among other things. Last February for example, Peter Sprigg, the senior researcher at the Family Research Council (FRC) told MSNBC host Chris Matthews that "I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior." All in all, the FRC's statements on homosexuality reminded the Southern Poverty Law Center of the Klan's statements on race. So the FRC was named a hate group.

Perry didn't exactly retreat from his view that New York had a right to legalize gay marriage, but he did manage to mollify Perkins by restating the blanket opposition to gay marriage in Texas and his own preference for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Right and that is the reason that the federal marriage amendment is being offered, it’s that small group of activist judges, and frankly a small handful, if you will, of states, and liberal special interests groups that intend on a redefinition of, if you will, marriage on the nation, for all of us, which I adamantly oppose.

Of course, that's never going to happen and Perry knows it. Support for gay marriage has been growing steadily over the years and just recently passed the 50%. The chances of conservatives passing an anti-gay marriage amendment to the constitution are exactly zero.

But reality isn't that meaningful of a concept for the FRC or any conservative group. The point for Perry was to pander enough to let the Family Research Council know that he was "one of them" and he succeeded.

And the Perry for President campaign goes on.

The Rick Perry Bubble

Texas Governor Rick Perry is thinking of running to be the third president of the Confederacy--after Jefferson Davis and George W. Bush.

My impression of Rick Perry is that he's not all that smart. I've always disagreed with people on the left who thought George W. Bush and Sarah Palin were stupid. Both of them are bright, clever people who decided on ignorance as a life strategy.

Rick Perry strikes me as more like George Allen and Mike Pence--just kind of dumb.

That doesn't mean that Perry couldn't be president. His political consultant Dave Carney certainly has a good idea of the niche Perry could occupy in the presidential primaries as someone who would “take the wood to Obama.”

About 40% of Republican voters didn't think Obama was born in the U. S. until he produced his "long-form" birth certificate.

That constituency is looking for someone who would be particularly aggressive toward Obama and Perry could fill the bill.

But Perry could also find out that the media and primary voters are going to expect to make an instantaneous transition from breathy anticipation of a Rick Perry candidacy to charismatic fulfillment of their expectation.

If Perry is not up to that, there's a good chance that he'll drop like a Fred Thompson stone.

For what it's worth, my initial opinion is that Perry doesn't have what it takes.