Rick Perry: Adios, Mofo

By Paul Begala, The Daily Beast

19 January 12

et us not allow Rick Perry to exit stage right - far right - without a final word or two. What can be said about a man who burst onto the national scene by toying with secession, as if 600,000 dead in the Civil War weren't enough?

Rick Perry appealed to the darkest angels of our nature. In his final debate appearance, standing in the metaphorical shadow of Fort Sumter, he said the state of South Carolina "is at war" with the federal government - and he said it with approval. Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and "a monstrous lie." He attacked the constitutionality of Medicare. He openly and dishonestly called our president a socialist. He said he would reinvade Iraq. He almost certainly executed an innocent man.

And for a time he was in first place among Republican presidential candidates.

We will, of course, remember Perry more for his spectacular stupidity than for his open desire to roll back the clock to 1861. Perry is a dope, and now all the world knows it. If he lives to be 100 he will be remembered for his "Oops" moment - when he couldn’t recall the three government agencies he wanted to abolish. To be sure, even the smartest of people can have a brain freeze, but Perry's cerebrum has been on dry ice for decades.

The pride of Texas A&M can now slink back home, defeated and disgraced, where he can try to explain to the lobbyists and billionaires who funded his campaign how he squandered a huge fortune and blew a big lead. In the most modestly gifted field in memory, Perry stood out. His incoherent debate performances, his weird,
rambling, giddy speech in New Hampshire, his embarrassingly low vote totals, will define him for the rest of his career.

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry prepares to speak with voters attending the West Des Moines Precinct 1 and 2 GOP Caucus held at the Seven Flags Event Center January 3, 2012 in West Des Moines, Iowa. , Jonathan Gibby / Getty Images

He earned the support of just 14,323 voters - a good turnout for a Texas high-school football game, but piss poor for a presidential campaign rolling in dough. The final reports aren't in - and the spending is likely to be much higher - but a quick assessment of the amount of money Perry's campaign and the pro-Perry super PAC spent comes out to $21.16 million. Again, that total will rise dramatically, but right now it looks like Team Perry spent at least $1,477 per vote. He could have given each of his voters a thousand dollars and saved money.

Right now it looks like Team Perry spent at least $1,477 per vote. He could have given each of his voters a thousand dollars and saved money.

Of course, some will blame it on Texas. And my beloved Lone Star State is the presidential Hall of Shame. John Connolly and Phil Gramm ran presidential campaigns that spent as recklessly as Perry, with similarly disastrous results. And George W. Bush ran a great campaign - and went on to be the worst president in a century. I don't know what it is, and I can't explain it. Perhaps Perry will cool the presidential dreams of the next good-looking airhead to rise in the Lone Star State. If so, he will have accomplished something lasting after all.

And so we bid Rick Perry farewell. But not with the socialist French phrase "Adieu." Instead, we use the pidgin Spanish Perry himself used to say goodbye to a group of journalists in 2005: "Adios, mofo."

The FOF Theory of the GOP Primary

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

19 January 12

teve Benen notes that by normal standards, Mitt Romney is a terrible candidate - but just not as bad as his rivals. He adds,

I often wonder what the race for the Republican nomination would look like this year if Romney had just one credible opponent.

But that wasn't going to happen! The weakness of the GOP field is not an accident.

I view the primary race through the lens of the FOF theory - that's for “fools and frauds”. It goes as follows: to be a good Republican right now, you have to affirm your belief in things that any halfway intelligent politician can see are plainly false. This leaves room for only two kinds of candidates: those who just aren't smart and/or rational enough to understand the problem, and those who are completely cynical, willing to say anything to get ahead.

What sort of things am I talking about? They range from the belief that Obama is a socialist who will destroy America with his dastardly Heritage Foundation devised health care plan, to the belief that unemployment is high because lazy people prefer their unemployment insurance checks. On budget matters, you have to claim to believe that we can cut taxes sharply, maintain high military spending, and eliminate the deficit - all without upsetting those Republican-voting Medicare recipients.

Notice that in the end, when it came to budget claims, even the supposedly hard-headed types - (cough) Paul Ryan (cough) - ended up relying on gigantic magic asterisks.

So what you have are fairly dim types like Perry, on the one side, and the utterly cynical Romney, on the other. (Gingrich manages to be both a fool and a fraud). Maybe, just maybe, the GOP could have found someone able to achieve Romney-level cynicism while coming across as sincere; but political talent on that level is quite rare. I mean, the various non-crazy-non-Romneys who were supposed to have a shot all turned out to be duds, e.g. Pawlenty.

The weakness of the GOP field is, in short, structural. Without the still-terrible economy, they wouldn't have a chance.