RSSRick Perry Leads The Race?
August 25, 2011
The Angry Squirrel - See all 34 of my articles
Move over Michele Bachmann, there is now a nutcase in the race with the proper chromosomes to be qualified to be President. Now before you get all hot and bothered by the sexism of me saying such a thing, that is certainly not how I feel. However, it must be how the Republican primary voters feel.
How else do you explain that in less than two weeks since officially jumping into the race that he is already the frontrunner and put good Ole Mittens and the crazy lady well behind in second and fourth place.
The new Gallup poll out today has Perry with 29 percent, Romney with 17, Ron Paul with 13 and Bachmann with just ten percent now in the polls.
There has been constant talk throughout this early stage in the process of the field not being complete or the voters being happy with their choices. Once Bachmann entered the race that quieted down a little bit, but despite running away with a meaningless straw poll vote in Iowa she never took over the lead in polling with the voters.
On the surface Bachmann and Perry appeal to the same audience of voters. Both are firebrands that say the red meat the tea party people want to hear, only one is male and one is female. So that has to be the reason for Perry’s surge to the front. It sure is not about his record as Governor of Texas, as I would say Dubya was a better Governor than him.
Speaking of which, if Perry were to get elected, I would for the first time answer yes to all those ‘Miss Me Yet?’ bumper stickers.
Don’t fret though you Bachmann crazies. You are bound to gather up the preference of those running behind you in the polls now and Perry could always mess things up and vault you back to the top.
One reason that could happen is the biggest difference other than gender between Perry and her. That reason being that she actually means and believes all the stupid and crazy shit that comes out of her mouth. Perry on the other hand, as evidenced by his responses to his own statements and writings in just the past year is already trying to change what he said, or that he meant this instead. If he does this too much the tea party people will start to see him as not much better than Mitt on that account and go back to supporting Bachmann. As genuine, sincere and honest craziness means much more to them, even if it is from a woman.
Aug 25, 2011 @ 14:31:30
That’s Rick Parry, with an A, right? 🙂
Aug 26, 2011 @ 08:20:30
So, when democratic primary voters picked Obama over Clinton was that sexism as well? After all, they are both proclaimed progressives, the only difference is their gender. Neither one actually had any experience,they were both one term senators. This isn’t sexism, it is choosing based on likes and dislikes. Besides, these early polls don’t mean very much, they are not elections which are the only polls that count. Remember GHW Bush could not loose to Clinton, but did, Kerry and Gore could not loose to GW Bush, but did.
I think the bigger difference between Bachman and Perry is one is a representative, and the other is a governor. Historically, governors make better candidates since they have actually managed large policitical entities (states) while representatives and senators are negotiators. While negotiations are the key to legislation, management is the key to the executive. With legislators in the executive you have someone medling in the congressional process (re: Obama, GHW Bush, Johnson, Kennedy) rather than acting (re: GW Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, etc).
Aug 26, 2011 @ 08:47:21
@ Martin – It’s a small point, but I might quibble with your classficication as GHW Bush as a legislator. At the time he became president, he had been out of congress for 18 years after a relatively short stint (4 years) and had been in administration-type roles since then (ambassador, director of the CIA, VP, etc).
I still think that Bobby Jindal could be the guy to watch if he decides to run. I think he’ll have more appeal than the current slate of candidate.
Aug 26, 2011 @ 15:06:47
Well Martin, the two scenarios are different. Throughout this part of the process last time around Hillary had a pretty large lead in the polls. It was not until after he won Iowa that Obama started. Hillary also seemed more of a centrist at the time than Obama in the campaign so I would say there is another fault in your correlation between the two. But yes there was a level of sexism involved there as well too by some people.
Now do I think that is the only reason for the sudden surge to the top when the actual message of the candidate is not much different than the other? No I do not. I do think it has a decent deal to do with it. I had some computer issues where I wrote my column over entirely on my phone this month so I pretty much left it minimalist in nature and hopefully would spur discussion to go farther into things.
You are right on the Governor issue, but Perry has done a horrible job at governing. The only to things he can lay his hat on are that the stimulus created a lot of jobs there and the state has the creation of the most minimum wage jobs as well.
Aug 26, 2011 @ 15:28:25
Well Kosmo you have a point in that Jindal has more appeal in a General Election than any of the current field, but I do not think he would have a ton of appeal to the Republican primary voter base at this time.
Aug 27, 2011 @ 10:19:16
Squirrel, looking back I do have to admit that in the last go around there was a lot of sexism. Since I live in Iowa, but have not always lived here, I have friends who call me after the straw poll and caucuses. Last time, among my Democrat friends (yes I have some) commented that they thought Iowa had chosen well by picking Obama, since they were not ready for a woman. On the other hand, my Republican friends exposed their prejudices by commenting that they did not think a Mormon could win. Personally, I think this is a sad commentary. I know that this will sound idealistic, but we should be picking our candidates based on how well their proposals and past performance match our own views rather than some superficial characteristic.
Kos, you are also correct. I included GHWB so that it did not look like I was picking on Democrats. Most of the recent legislators who have gained to office of President have been Democrats. Most of our presidents have been Governors or Generals, basically managers of large (non-business) organizations. That is the main point I was trying to make.
On the Jingle idea, you could both be right. The problem with current election philosophy is that if you are not “in” a year ahead of time, you cannot gather enough money or support to win. If he waits much longer, he will be too far behind to catch up. He could be a good VP addition for whoever does get the Republican nod, sort of a stabilizing factor, like Biden was for Obama, to mitigate the fears that the true independents may have.
Aug 27, 2011 @ 10:20:58
Sorry, on the last comment, I forgot to include my name and email. I am not Anonymous after all!
Aug 27, 2011 @ 17:27:15
Personally, I think what might work against Romey is:
1) He signed Romneycare into law. He might have felt it was he lesser of two evils, but his signature is on he bill. Makes it somewhat difficult to bash Obamacare.
2) Will the fact that he’s the son of a governor (as well as a former governor himself) make it difficult to convince peple that he’s “one of us”?
3) I don’t think he name helps him. I’m not saying that people should vote against him simply because his name is Mitt, but there’s a decent chunk of the voting public that take a lot of weird things into account.
Unless he was actively evangelizing the Mormon faith as a candidate, I don’t see why this should be an issue at all. Then again, I think that folks in the midwest don’t focus as much on a person’s religion as other parts of the country might. I doubt that I could tell you the religion of half my friends (excluding the ones that I know from church …)
Sep 03, 2011 @ 20:34:45
My guess is that it’s both sexism and preference. Perry may be more appealing partly based on his Y chromosome, but he can also play sane better than Bachmann. Perry can, if he chooses, project mainstream. Bachmann, not so much.