I see that the front page is focused on the present GOP contenders, none of whom is going to get the GOP nomination. It's not going to be Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Bachmann, Cain, Paul, or Palin in the end.
The real candidate that the front-pagers aren't focusing on is Rick Perry. He's the dark horse candidate who has the real powerbrokers behind him:
the religious right, the Koch brothers, and
a so-called unaffiliated SuperPAC called "Americans For Rick Perry" just filed with the FEC to raise money for future attack ads.
The earlier the front page on Dailykos starts talking about Rick Perry and his miserable record as Governor, the better off we'll be going into the 2012 election. Even though Rick Perry has not officially announced, he's setting himself up as a dark horse candidate by travelling all over the country and meeting with wealthy donors such as the Koch brothers, and lining up the religious right behind him. If we all can knock him down early in the GOP primaries in favor of a weaker candidate, it means that the 2012 presidential election won't be as difficult.
All the signs have been pointing to Rick Perry as the choice of the wealthy elite and the religious right for a very long time. Mitt Romney
isn't fundraising to the extent he could,
Pawlenty is drawing water at this point, and
Gingrich's holding on to wisps of his campaign.
Why isn't the money flowing in for these once-vaunted candidates?
The simple answer is that the wealthy donors are sitting on their money, waiting for a candidate like Rick Perry to get into the race. They don't want to cap out their donations, instead saving it for Rick Perry and superPACs like "Americans For Rick Perry" to donate to in favor of unlimited attack ads against President Obama, and touting Rick Perry's so-called economic record.
Why should we fear Rick Perry? Even though his team has floated stories to the press about the so-called division between him and Bush in an attempt to show that Rick Perry is nothing like Bush, he's Bush on steroids. Perry's team know that this is one of his weakest points, is that his planned path to the White House is modeled after former President George W. Bush, and that they have the same connections to Republican strategists, donors, the religious right, and to conservative think tanks.
Rick Perry doesn't want to be tied to George W. Bush in the eyes of independent and swing voters, hence the flood of stories to the press about divisions between him and Dubya. Too bad for Rick Perry, if the Democrats have it right, that's precisely what they will do in spite of the protests from Rick Perry and his people.
Here's the tag line for the rest of the campaign to use in 2012: Rick Perry is Bush on steroids. If elected President, he'll take the country back to the brink just as President Bush did, and he'll let the corporations run amok just as President Bush did. Rick Perry and foreign policy would be like oil and water.
The only reason that the wealthy elite and the religious right see Rick Perry as a potential serious contender for the GOP nomination, and their recent moves in drawing the wagons around him, is because of his so-called economic record that he can hoodwink vulnerable voters with.
President Obama is very vulnerable on the economy, and his recent policy moves on the deficit is not helping him on the economy. Rick Perry and his people know that. That's the main weak point they will exploit to their fullest power with the help of the Koch brothers, the wealthy elite, Wall Street, and powerful corporate interests.
They will spread political ads against President Obama on the economy all over the tv channels, radio stations, the Internet, and hide the truth about Rick Perry's economic record.
To learn more about how just thin Rick Perry's economic record is, please check out the great compilation at ThinkProgress here. Here's a snippet from one ThinkProgress article:
On a separate note, Perry’s claims about the booming Texas economy have run into a solid dose of reality. As the Austin American-Statesman noted, “while the national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent and the Texas unemployment rate is 8 percent, some 23 states, including New York, have lower unemployment rates.” Between 2008 and 2010, jobs actually grew at a faster pace in Massachusetts than in Texas, and “Texas has done worse than the rest of the country since the peak of national unemployment in October 2009.” Perry’s state does, however, lead the nation by having the highest percentage of minimum wage jobs.
This coming election is basically a replay of the Bush v. Gore election, where a Texan (once thought to be a joke with no chances of getting the White House) cheated, lied, and used powerful corporate interests and the Supreme Court to get into the White House, and Gore couldn't stop that. We have a chance to stop it now. It's why we need to keep on pressing President Obama not to put Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table in the debt ceiling cuts, and to remind House Democrats this is how they lost in 2010.
If President Obama does that, the Republicans and Rick Perry will run ads in states like Florida, Ohio, and other needed states that President Obama and the Democrats voted to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those ads will have the ring of truth behind them, and voters will fall for that, especially independent voters and the senior vote. That's basically what happened in 2010 when Republicans ran ads against Democrats about their cutting Medicare (never mind the fact that the cuts were actually removing Medicare Advantage overpayments to private insurance companies).
We all need to be on a stronger footing going into 2012. This is why the front-page needs to focus on Rick Perry, and forget about the other candidates. They're basically cannon fodder for humor at this point. We also need the House Democrats to stand firm in favor of no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
With that said, Mitt Romney isn't the one to fear in 2012. Rick Perry is.
Let's take him down early. NOW.