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[Ya-ta Boy]

The official campaign season gets going with the Ames Straw Poll. The caucus will be held in just about 6 months and the general election 9 months after that. ( )

Ames Straw Poll Results Are In:

01. 4,823 Michele Bachmann
02. 4,671 Ron Paul
03. 2,293 Tim Pawlenty
04. 1,657 Rick Santorum
05. 1,456 Herman Cain
06. 0,718 Rick Perry**
07. 0,567 Mitt Romney
08. 0,358 Newt Gingrich
09. 0,069 Jon Huntsman
10. 0,035 Thad McCotter
11. 0,003 Iowa State Fair Butter Cow

(Didn't see any numbers for Gary Johnson)

The straw poll isn't helpful in predicting winners, but it is useful in beginning to winnow out losers.

As expected Michele Bachmann won, but looks weak doing it--how much future can you have if you can only manage to beat RP by 152? She's not toast yet, but the toaster has been plugged in. (See below)

Pawlenty, at less than half her vote count, needs to 'reassess' and decide to spend more time with his family...or something. Double that for Rick Santorum. T-Paw's only hope now is a VeeP offer and that is slim unless the top of the ticket needs someone colorless to run with.

Mitt Romney ('Corporations are too people!') needs to figure out how to deal with Perry who outscored him without even trying. His support seems to be based on the idea that he isn't as crazy as the rest of the field. That's pretty thin support.

Perry has shown he is tactically aggressive and knows how to stomp on other people's messages. Does he have other campaign skills? We'll soon see.

(I'm curious where his 718 votes came from. Each one cost someone $30.)

[Edit: ** Some Iowa Republican bigwig admitted today (8/19/'11) that some of Perry's votes came from people who wrote in 'pArry', in an obvious bow to S. Colbert's TV ads. He declined to say just how many.]

[jrwhite82]

I heard that some of the PACs/Campaigns paid for people's $30 fees.

I know this poll is nonbinding, but if people can be given money for it, what's the point of doing it. What's the point of even discussing it?

It's a sham (paid voting) and meaningless (non-binding).

[Fox]

Rick Perry's "Texas Miracle" Con Job.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Rick Perry, the candidate Glenn Beck wanted to French kiss

Quite frankly, I don't see any reason to even bother with a presidential election next year. We already know what Obama wants and the GOP has offered nothing new to replace the failed policies that brought wrack and ruin to the country in '00-'08. More extreme versions of failed policies are not usually thought of as 'new', so let's have congressional elections, but skip the presidential. Obama's going to win anyway. My suggestion: pass the hat and ask anyone who was going to donate to anyone's presidential campaign to pony up the same amount to keep the country going.

Since that idea is too practical and common sensical to be adopted, I'm pretty confident Perry will be the GOP nominee. Why? Because he is every bit as wacky as Bachmann but probably doesn't make as many factual mistakes as she does. The other contender is Romney, but no one is actually, actively pro-Romney; his supporters are just desperate to find someone not wacky at a time when the majority of the party is full-bore wacky. It's not surprising they are as wacky as they are. True believers get that way when their world view comes crashing down and the solution is to go out with a blaze of 'glory' rather than admit you were wrong. Remember Berlin, 1945.

Fox posted a good summary of the gov's record in Texas. Here is more:

1. Perry allowed the execution of a likely innocent man, then impeded an investigation into the matter (Cameron Todd Willingham). In a related matter, here is what Glenn Beck had to say about Perry:

The things that I have witnessed firsthand on Rick Perry I like. For instance, we were standing backstage and at one point we were talking about the guy, you know, the guy who�s getting the death penalty. What was the guy�s name that killed all those people in Houston, the illegal immigrant, Pat?
PAT: There�s several. Are you talking about Angel what�s his face?
GLENN: Yeah, got the death penalty, Bush tried to push it off. And Rick Perry said to me, "I�ll throw the switch myself. He is going to die." And I loved him for that. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/36197/

2. Perry wants to repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments (income tax and direct election of senators).
3. Proposed letting states drop out of Social Security and Medicaid. He also thinks they should be state programs, not federal. (He seems to think they are unconstitutional.)
4. Texas is the country's biggest polluter while he's pretty much a denier of any kind of science.
5. Perry pushed through as 'emergency legislation' a bill requiring all women seeking an abortion to have sonograms.
6. Gutted childcare services even though there is an $8.2 billion rainy day fund.
7. He supports anti-sodomy laws. More recently he has come out for leaving human rights to the states.
8. After saying 'we can take care of ourselves' he accepted stimulus funds.
9. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country with no idea how to fix it.
10. Secession and hanging out with neo-Confederates.
11. He's seems to have waged war on public education. No doubt home schooling and charter schools are just dandy, though.

Texas used to have some pretty darn good liberals, Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower...LBJ. Texas, what has happened to you?

Oh, about that Glenn Beck kiss thing...
�Rick, I think you and I could French kiss right now.�
(It's not the kiss, it's having GB's support that is appalling.)
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/04/24/93317/beck-perry/

[Ya-ta Boy]

Pawlenty ends White House Bid

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) � Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination on Sunday, hours after finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa straw poll.

"I wish it would have been different. But obviously the pathway forward for me doesn't really exist so we are going to end the campaign," Pawlenty said on ABC's "This Week" from Iowa shortly after disclosing his plans in a private conference call with supporters.

**
Smart move. He wasn't going anywhere and now he doesn't have to apologize to the eventual winner before being offered the VeeP spot.

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-minn-gov-tim-pawlenty-ends-white-house-124623539.html

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is why I think Perry will finish off Bachmann with relative ease before he turns on Romney and wipes up the floor with him:

In Waterloo, Perry offers contrast to Bachmann

WATERLOO, Iowa � Rick Perry came to Michele Bachmann�s home town Sunday evening and schooled the newly minted Iowa front-runner in her native state�s demanding retail political culture.

The day after Perry announced his candidacy and Bachmann won the Ames straw poll, the two candidates spoke to the Black Hawk County Republican Party�s Lincoln Day dinner, the sort of endless regional event that is a staple of the long Iowa campaign...

But the contrast that may lift Perry, and undermine Bachmann, in their high-stakes battle for Iowa had less to do with what they said than how they said it � and what they did before and after speaking.

Perry arrived early, as did former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The Texas governor let a media throng grow and dissolve before working his way across the room to sit at table after table, shake hand after hand, pose for photographs and listen politely to a windy Abraham Lincoln impersonator, paying respect to a state that expects candidates, no matter their fame, to be accessible.

But Bachmann campaigned like a celebrity. And the event highlighted the brittle, presidential-style cocoon that has become her campaign�s signature: a routine of late entries, unexplained absences, quick exits, sharp-elbowed handlers with matching lapel pins, and pre-selected questioners.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61366.html

There are several pithy quotes in the article that highlight the fact Perry is a real politician. Neither Bachmann nor Romney are.

[lithium]

Rick Perry is the real deal. We need someone to be the exact opposite of Obama, and he is the obvious choice.

http://www.rickperry.org/join-today/

[visitorq]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[goreality]

I think some of Rick Perry's 718 votes were actually for Rick Parry, they wouldn't official confirm the amount.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qulpucVacM8

[visitorq]

[Ineverlie&I'malwaysri]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Ya-ta Boy]

It didn't take Perry long to demonstrate he isn't qualified to be president.

Exhibit A: Karl Rove's (Karl Rove!) reaction to the Bernanke accusation:

"You don't accuse the chairman of the Federal Reserve of being a traitor to his country. Of being guilty of treason. And, suggesting that we treat him pretty ugly in Texas. You know, that is not, again a presidential statement," - Karl Rove.

Joseph Lawler: "Here's the question I'd like to see Perry asked: 'Your predecessor as governor of Texas, George W. Bush, appointed Ben Bernanke to the Fed in 2006. In 2008, during an election year in which the Republican incumbency was threatened, Bernanke effectively doubled the monetary base. In other words, he more or less printed money on a massive scale. Was that "almost treasonous"? If so, what is Bush's culpability, given that he knew beforehand from Bernanke's academic work that he would print money in response to a financial crisis?'"

Exhibit B: Does Obama love America? Perry: "You're a good reporter. Go ask him."
This is just Birtherism in disguise...Obama is not, somehow, one of us.


But do not despair, right-wing friends! You have yet another savior on the horizon. Paul Ryan is off in Colorado naval-gazing about whether to throw his hat in the ring.

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan is strongly considering a run for president. Ryan, who has been quietly meeting with political strategists to discuss a bid over the past three months, is on vacation in Colorado discussing a prospective run with his family. Ryan�s concerns about the effects of a presidential campaign � and perhaps a presidency � on his family have been his primary focus as he thinks through his political future.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ryan-president_590273.html

[Ya-ta Boy]

Because it is inevitable at some point that someone will ignorantly claim that Republicans didn't seriously toy with defaulting, for historical purposes:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/whos-really-responsible-for-us-debt-downgrade.php?ref=fpblg

Edit
UPDATE: You can add Rick Perry to the list.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_08/revisionist_history_two_weeks031562.php