So Rick Perry caught a big break Tuesday: He took a shellacking from his own party's establishment for
accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and threatening to deliver a Texas-style beatdown should the Fed Chairman ever set foot in the state. Karl Rove and gang are
leading the way in umbrage-taking, saying Perry's comments were irresponsible and unpresidential. The GOP's top funders are piling on,
telling Jonathan Martin that they are very unhappy with Perry's cowboy flair and might not donate to his campaign as a result.
Of course, anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Republican primary electorate doesn't give a flying fuck about whether their candidate meets Karl Rove's definition of presidential or whether the GOP's top funders will open their wallets to his campaign. In fact, I'd bet my bottom dollar this dustup will help Perry's campaign, not hurt it. He would much rather spend his time talking about his Bernanke comment than defending his record on a number of issues where he actually is vulnerable from the right.
To see what I mean, just compare what happened to Rick Perry on Monday to what happened Tuesday. On Monday, he was confronted with a deluge of scripted attacks on his conservative credentials during an Iowa radio show. The show's host said he had received more than 150 copies of the same exact email attacking Perry from the right, so clearly Perry was the target of an organized campaign. Perhaps it was Michele Bachmann, or perhaps it was Rove and Romney-sympathetic Republicans, but whoever it was, I'll guarantee you that Perry is thrilled Tuesday's coverage focused on his attack against the Fed instead of the attacks against him circulated by his political enemies.
GOP insiders fear Bachmann more than Perry
because she's smarter and she's a woman
(Daniel Acker/Reuters)
Meanwhile, even as Perry's campaign is gaining steam, establishment Republicans are trying to cool it down. Rich Lowry writes in the
National Review that Perry
will become a reviled figure in America, because liberals hate Texas as much as they hate Sarah "Gives Rich Lowry Starbursts" Palin, or something like that. Lowry doesn't seem to understand that today's Republican activist base has such a big chip on their shoulder that they see being hated a positive thing.
But even though they don't seem to like Rick Perry or think he'd be a good candidate, the GOP establishment still has a problem: They're afraid they don't have anyone who can beat him. They'd love Mitt Romneybot to win the nomination, but it's starting to dawn on them that nobody likes Romney, and that Romney's campaign is in fact doomed. Michele Bachmann? Ack! She's like Perry, only smarter and female. Clearly, that won't do. And with their Pawlenty dream having fizzled, where do they turn? Ah, yes, to Paul Ryan! He proposed repealing Medicare, after all. Surely the teahadists can rally around that, right? Perhaps—but so too can every Democrat who knows what happened in NY-26.
