Rick Perry has finally found a way to impress the Iowa evangelicals...
From yesterday's Houston Chronicle Blog
Bob Vander Plaats, the conservative Christian activist in Iowa who staged last Saturday’s Thanksgiving Family Forum in Des Moines for the GOP presidential hopefuls, has said that his organization, the Family Leader, won’t be endorsing anyone who doesn’t sign the group’s pledge to oppose gay marriage. After four months of waiting, Rick Perry signed the pledge this morning, the Des Moines Register reports.
Four months of waiting? Sounds like Perry had to repeat his assessment of the pledge in summer school while all the other candidates were all having fun at camp. I guess things have changed a lot in four months. Perry swaggered onto the scene in Iowa, stealing poor little SqueekyB’s thunder and skyrocketing to the top of the poll.
Deep-pocket donors fell all over themselves trying to stuff his pockets with cash: $17 million in three months. Then he went and opened his mouth. After that, it was all downhill, like a battered aluminum flying saucer sled on an icy hill. It hasn’t ended well.
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are the only other candidates to sign it so far.
Bachman signed it early in her campaign, when she was leading in the polls in Iowa and elsewhere, despite controversial language in the pledge that made some candidates skittish. Language in the preamble of the document suggested that slavery offered more of a pro-family climate for African Americans than life today. Vander Plaats later removed the language but not before Bachmann and Santorum had signed.
That’s our little SqueekyB, the tip of the spear, ahead of the pack. Everybody’s always picking on her, but seriously, who even r-e-a-d-s these pledges? Just line ‘em up, and let’s get this show on the road. We don’t want a president who gets “skittish” at a little revisionist history, racism, homophobia, or subversion of the constitution. We want “a leader, not a reader”.
Speaking of which: what about Herman Cain? Can we update the pledge to include not assaulting women? Or threatening them with bodily harm if they don’t shut up about his numerous indiscretions? Or maybe we need the spouses of the candidates to sign a pledge confirming their excellent character. That would make all their "indiscretions", wouldn’t it? Who's a better character reference than the little woman, kept locked away, out of sight, never allowed to speak her mind?
Follow along below Bob Vander Plaats' vacant brain scan for more...
The 14-point pledge commits a signee to support the Defense of Marriage Act, personal fidelity to the signee’s spouse, appointment of “faithful constitutionalists” as judges and eliminating anti-marriage elements in divorce, tax and welfare laws. The signee also pledges to protect women and children from pornography and reject Sharia law because it is a “form of totalitarian control.”
Sharia law really freaks these folks out. There’s nothing that these strict Christian fundamentalists find more annoying than people trying to control their behavior by using religious pronouncements as a way to suppress free choice and personal expression. That’s just so unfair.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, thrice married, has said he would sign the pledge if he could tinker with it a bit. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has declined to sign. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who’s also running for the GOP presidential nomination, called the pledge “offensive and unRepublican” and “nothing short of a promise to discriminate against everyone who makes a personal choice that doesn’t fit into a particular definition of ‘virtue.’”
Um, Newt... I think you’ve done enough “tinkering” for a lifetime. Just admit it: pledges are for idiots. You’re way too much of an academic elite to be spending your time on this sort of crap. You ought to be drafting child labor law repeal language, arguing against your previous positions in a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate, or out shopping for more bling for Callista, since it’s clear that she’s immobilized from too much Botox, poor thing.
And Mitt... I don’t know how to tell you this, but people are not exactly lining up to infringe on your marriage. They’d rather stick with someone in their own species. Or take a vow of celibacy. You can sign the pledge if you want, but it's pretty much irrelevant. Like your candidacy.
Gary, dude!? Are you still in this thing?? Missed ya in the debates!! You would have been awesome with that “offensive and unRepublican” comments. We could use some of that fresh thinking. I'll keep an eye out for you next time.
So who is this Vander Plaats guy, anyway?
Vander Plaats, 48, is a controversial figure in Iowa. He’s run for governor three times, losing each time in the GOP primary, and yet he wields great influence among Iowa evangelicals. In 2008, he ran Mike Huckabee’s campaign in Iowa, and the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor won the Iowa Caucus. “Since he can’t be king, he’ll be kingmaker,” Drake University political scientist Dennis Goldford told me last week.
What is it with people like Vander Plaats? Does he have Polaroids from some late-night Iowa caucus events or something? When he or Grover Norquist enter a room, people stumble, wide-eyed and moaning, zombie-like, towards them, fumbling in their pockets and purses for pens. These same “faithful constitutionalists” are willing to use the constitution to line the bottom of a bird-cage when some pledge is waved in front of them. Pavlov should have studied these folks instead of those drooling dogs.
If a politician is willing to ignore their pledge to the voters who elected them and to the constitution they swore to uphold, why in the world would we expect them to be faithful to their spouse? It's like they're all just waiting for a better offer. It's like that wedding vow renewal I attended, where the couple vowed to stay together "as long as they both shall love".
But… I digress. Everybody’s got their reasons for signing idiotic pledges, and for Perry, that reason is desperation:
Perry, now mired in single digits in Iowa and desperately trying to re-energize his campaign, is on TV constantly in the Hawkeye state. A tap on the shoulder from the Vander Plaats sceptre would be extremely useful.
What would be really useful is a time machine, to go back in time before those pesky debates. But now, this is what it comes down to: millions of dollars in the campaign fund can’t buy the votes. You have to pay your dues to a “controversial figure in Iowa”. That’s gotta hurt. It’s just so… un-Texan. Since when does a sceptre trump a couple of handguns? Perry’s usually the one demanding that people pay him huge sums of money (and that’s just to get on his appointment calendar).
Still, Perry should look on the bright side. It’s fortunate that the pledge isn’t retroactive. There are a lot of skeletons in that big Texas-sized closet... and probably quite a few Polaroids hidden away until just the right moment.