The Prisoner on Flight 1884

Posted on | September 13, 2011 | 52 Comments

The National Affairs Desk, 4 p.m., Sept. 13, 2011

“Shortly after the election-night returns [in the 1972 Florida Democratic primary] showed Muskie hopelessly mired in fourth place behind Wallace, Humphrey, and Jackson, the Man from Maine called an emergency staff meeting and announced he was quitting the race. This stirred up a certain amount of panic and general anger among the staff people, who eventually persuaded Big Ed to at least get himself under control before talking to any reporters. He agreed to go out and play golf the next day, while the top-level staffers got together and tried to find some alternative.
“This was the reality behind the story, widely published the next day, that Muskie had decided to ‘change his whole style’ and start talking like the Fighting Liberal he really was at heart. He would move on to Illinois and Wisconsin with new zeal . . . and his staff people were so happy with this decision to finally ‘take off the gloves’ that they had agreed to work without pay until the day after the big Victory Party in Wisconsin.
“It took about a week for the story of Muskie’s attempt to quit the race to leak out to the press, but it was not an easy thing to confirm. One of the most frustrating realities of this goddamn twisted business is the situation where somebody says, ‘I’ll only answer your question if you promise not to print it.’
“Everybody I talked to about the Muskie story seemed to know all the details – but there was no point trying to check it out, they said, because it came from ‘somebody who was at the meeting’ and he ‘obviously can’t talk about it.’
“Of course not. Only a lunatic would risk getting fired from his un-salaried job on the Muskie campaign several days before the crucial Wisconsin primary.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72

PHILADELPHIA
We took off from Tampa International Airport at noon sharp, some 90-odd passengers aboard a U.S. Airways 737, including the prisoner who sat handcuffed in 25F, the right-side window seat in the rearmost row. A plainclothes law enforcement officer — federal marshal? sheriff’s deputy? homicide detective? — sat in 25D, the aisle seat.

Nobody sat in 25E, for obvious reasons.

What crime had the prisoner committed? I didn’t dare ask. But whatever it was, somebody wanted this guy transported to Philadelphia ASAP, which was why he shared my pleasant flight on U.S. Airways, three rows behind me in the tail end of the big Boeing jet.

Our flight was only about three-quarters full, so even though my ticket was for seat 6E — a center seat on the right side, just a couple rows behind first class — I was able to opt for 22C, an aisle seat on the left, way in the back. I always prefer an aisle seat, and this flight was sufficiently underbooked that I got extra room because seat 22B was empty. All in all, then, it was a nearly ideal flight experience in terms of 21st-century commercial air travel.

Did the prisoner in seat 25F fully appreciate this? Probably not.

Interstate fugitives don’t usually collect many frequent flyer miles, and so the guy in handcuffs probably had no frame of reference — overbooked planes, delayed departures, missed connections, long layovers — with which to compare his involuntary trip to Philly.

Meanwhile, the guy in 22A (the window seat next to me) was reading A Clockwork Orange while I was reading Hunter S. Thompson’s account of the 1972 campaign. Both are tales of twisted madness, but only one of those stories is fiction. And covering the current presidential campaign confirms every insight Thompson had about “this goddamn twisted business” of political journalism. The hassles and annoyances, the sources who don’t return phone calls, the stories that everybody knows about but nobody can report — it’s a familiar ordeal, even if writing this stuff on a blog isn’t quite the same as publishing it in Rolling Stone.

Consider, for example, Tim Pawlenty’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. When the news hit yesterday morning while I was in Tampa, I asked: “What was Pawlenty’s price?” The obvious answer, of course, was an agreement that Romney would cover Pawlenty’s campaign debts:

“If Tim Pawlenty wants our help, that’s something we’d help him with, just as we help all our friends.”
— Andrew Saul, Romney campaign spokeswoman

See? Everybody knows what this is about. We can further stipulate as something else “everybody knows” that Pawlenty would have sold his endorsement to any Republican candidate who had agreed to pick up his tab. What we have learned is that Tim Pawlenty is a rather shameless whore, and if I had an intern, I’d assign them to do Lexis-Nexis searches for articles from six or eight months ago in which reputable commentators discussed Pawlenty as a viable conservative alternative to Romney.

So much for that, I suppose. Like the unpaid staffers working for Muskie in ’72, Pawlenty’s top staff reportedly agreed to work without pay when his campaign ran low on cash in the weeks leading up to last month’s Ames straw poll. But professional Republican campaign operatives are not altruistic volunteers. To “work without pay” is actually to defer payment, so that your agreed-upon salary, a matter of contractual obligation, is billed to the campaign as a debt. Ditto the contractors, vendors and consultants.

Pawlenty’s rumored “six-figure” campaign debt, then, is owed in large measure to his former top campaign operatives as back pay. And by agreeing to pick up Pawlenty’s tab — c’mon, everybody knows that’s the deal here — Romney is thereby agreeing to pay the salaries of guys who, until a month ago, were contractually obligated to do all in their power to defeat Romney.

This is the kind of stuff that makes people cynical about politics, but if you’re not cynical about politics, it’s only because you don’t actually know anything about politics. Professional campaign operatives are all hired guns. I’m sure they have their ideals — don’t we all? — but idealism doesn’t pay the rent and, when push comes to shove, they work for whoever agrees to hire them. If some of Pawlenty’s former staffers eventually turn up on the staff of Mitt Romney, this is no more a judgment on the character of the ex-Pawlenty people than whatever damned fool notion made them think Tim Pawlenty ever had a ghost’s chance of winning the GOP nomination.

Thank God I was never such a fool. When the Man From Minnesota announced his candidacy in April, I offered this campaign slogan suggestion:

PAWLENTY 2012: Because Politics Isn’t Boring Enough

It took exactly four months for my judgment to be proven accurate, during which time every Respectable Conservative Pundit was obligated to treat Pawlenty as a serious contender for 2012, even though he was transparently weak and inadequate. And this is why, you see, I’m not a Respectable Conservative Pundit: I’ve got this bad habit of writing the brutal truth.

There are truths, however, I can’t yet tell and not merely because no one will go on the record to confirm the ugly facts, so I’ll limit myself to reflecting on what kind of nonsense influenced the bandwagon-jumpers who spent the first seven months and 13 days of 2011 proclaiming that Tim Pawlenty was The Real Deal.

Conventional Wisdom is that the best candidates for president are successful, popular, two-term governors. Conventional Wisdom also dictates that it’s bad business for Republicans to nominate a Southerner. It’s not just that Bush-era “brand damage” has jinxed any GOP candidate with a drawl, but the perfectly logical understanding that any Republican candidate will carry the Southern states with little effort.

What the GOP therefore needs — the Conventional Wisdom dictates — is a successful, popular, two-term governor from one of the 37 states that isn’t represented by a star on the Confederate battle flag. It’s not merely the reflexive Republican fear of being called “racist” that accounts for this, but rather the need to expand the party’s geographical reach by picking up Electoral College votes in the Northeast and Midwest.

Tim Pawlenty perfectly fit the Conventional Wisdom prescription, which also explains why so many pundit types expended countless words arguing for the 2012 candidacies of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Neither Daniel nor Christie wished to risk their political futures running against an incumbent president and wisely so. For them, 2016 is just as good as 2012, and why take a chance of losing to an incumbent president, as history suggests the Republican nominee will eventually do, no matter who that nominee is?

At any rate, by a sort of historical default, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has now been boosted to front-runner status and the need to defend the presumptive GOP nominee explains why Rush Limbaugh is bashing Michele Bachmann. Let’s acknowledge that Bachmann is, and always has been, a long shot for the nomination. For the long shot to bash the front-runner is considered bad for Republicans. Perry is now viewed as viable whereas Bachmann is not. So never mind the inarguable Merck/Gardasil/Perry nexus, let’s throw Bachmann under the bus.

Why are Perry’s defenders so doggone defensive? You can see how Melissa Clouthier strains herself in endeavoring to defend Perry on the Gardasil front and say, “Well, OK, Melissa’s from Texas, so she’s kind of a special pleader in this context.” But I’m remembering some things I was told off-the-record and wondering whether Perry’s supposed “inevitablility” will prove as evanescent as the erstwhile inevitability of Tim Pawlenty.

“The campaign had to counterspin against attacks on their candidate, over and over. Perry did a good job defending himself on some of these and a not-so-good job on others, but overall it wasn’t a great night for him. . . . This wasn’t a make-or-break night for Perry or anyone else; there are a lot of debates scheduled in the coming months, and Perry has plenty of time to improve. But he will need to improve.”
— John Tabin, The American Spectator

Ever since Iowa, my gut-hunch fear is that the Perry bandwagon will somehow result in the nomination of Romney, the very alternative that Perry’s supporters desire most to avoid.

There is no reward for issuing such oddball warnings, of course. If I’m wrong — if Perry goes on to a glorious triumph — then everyone will scoff at my folly. And if I’m right, then there will be no praise for my political insight, any more so than I am today praised for having spotted Pawlenty as a loser months before his campaign ultimately collapsed.

But I’ve got a ticket on another plane departing soon for Baltimore, so there’s no time now to brood over such things. My cocktail waitress at the airport lounge just predicted Romney-Rubio, and that’s probably a smart bet at this point. Hit the freaking tip jar.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE I: Palin Derangement Syndrome? Hmmm.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Debates, Election 2012, Florida, Shoe Leather Fund

Comments

52 Responses to “The Prisoner on Flight 1884”

Manicmonkeymojo
September 13th, 2011 @ 10:11 pm

Sir, you could not be MORE correct. The one thing that I learned last night was that Perry doesn’t seem to be able to take a punch. He can’t take a punch from a man, he can’t take a punch from a gal; so what makes us think that he can take a punch from a crypto-Commie named Barry? I’m not willing to walk away from his ability to win, but dear Lord in Heaven, he’s got to get ahold of himself, and someone needs to slap him upside the head and say: half-assing one’s self through life is no way to live.

You know how bad he was? It was Bush-During-The-First-2004-Debate bad. I cannot spend the next five years of my life praying that the GOP nominee/president is going to say or do something idiotic and not be able to talk himself out of the paper bag he’s wandered into by trying to be all things to all people.

Note to the Perry Campaign: here are the 3 darned issues that your guy has to be able to answer clearly and without stumbling: 1) forced inoculations of 11 y/o girls for sex cooties (no, “being on the side of life” isn’t an answer, nor is “cancer blows”); 2) illegals (no, it’s not racist to want to control who gets to be a citizen); 3) Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, are you in or out (there probably isn’t a wrong answer, except for not having one that’s consistent)?
Anonymous
September 13th, 2011 @ 10:34 pm

Stacy, don’t ever stop with this stuff. This is the best, even if it’s only for a blog.
Anonymous
September 13th, 2011 @ 10:51 pm

As long as you keep lying about “forced”, I consider you just another Copperhead.

If “opt-out” present, then not forced.
nicholas
September 13th, 2011 @ 10:57 pm

Good post.
Joe
September 13th, 2011 @ 10:57 pm

“What we have learned is that Tim Pawlenty is a rather shameless whore.”

You missed your calling at the State Department, but I am glad you are the go to reporter on this election.

Did you ever get a chance to ask the guy in 25F who he was supporting in 2012?
JeffS
September 13th, 2011 @ 11:03 pm

Both are tales of twisted madness, but only one of those stories is fiction.

Which one is which, Stacy? ;-p

Seriously……good work! Much appreciated. The tip jar will show that appreciation soon enough.
Tennwriter
September 13th, 2011 @ 11:20 pm

Very nice, RSM.
Charles
September 13th, 2011 @ 11:47 pm

The flip side to this is the cynical feeling that the entire last three years of Republican politics – the Sarah Palin pick, the Tea Party, the refusal to go for a good deal on health care, the long line of candidates – was designed solely to find someone other than Romney for 2012.

In much the same way, so much energy was spent the last time out trying to find someone other than John McCain. If Romney does get the nomination, the so-called right has just spent 5 years training people to not vote for the eventual Republican nominee.

Could it be Barack Obama or George Soros hitting the tip jar? Makes you wonder.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 12:14 am

There was no “good deal” to be had on health care.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 12:22 am

There’s a lot to be said for a lack of respectability…

http://tinyurl.com/3osnjky
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 12:44 am

RSM: yes, Perry is an imperfect candidate and you obviously don’t like him. That’s fine, as long as we’re clear that the alternative to Perry is likely Romney.

I’m not saying that Cain “can’t win,” but the general consensus of the national press corps seems to be that Cain has little chance of wining and who are we to argue with the general consensus?
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 1:08 am

Perry is an imperfect candidate and you obviously don’t like him

A. No one is demanding that any candidate be “perfect.” Melissa trots out that straw-man in her letter, as if all of Perry’s critics are impractical purists or ideological fanatics, but that’s not the point at all.

B. Whether I like anyone is utterly irrelevant to the real-world question of whether Perry can win the nomination and then beat Obama. I’ve only briefly met Perry, a couple of years ago at CPAC, so I can’t be accused of any personal animus toward the man. It would be more fair — and more to the point — to say that I don’t like the way his campaign is operating, getting in late, purposefully dissing the Iowa GOP and then trying to shut down opposition with bandwagon arguments.

Like I said, maybe my concerns are ill-informed and irrational. Maybe everything will work out hunky-dory in the end. But I’ve just got a bad vibe about the Perry bandwagon, and don’t like being told to shut up while there is still time to turn the cruiseliner away from that iceberg looming up through the fog ahead.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 1:51 am

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Perry “lost the debate”. Maybe, maybe not. How much stock do you put in Luntz’s’ dialing focus groups?
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:00 am

My wording was poor there. By conceding up front that Perry is “imperfect,” that was my very imperfect way of saying that I have issues with him, too. However, I’m concerned that the alternative to Perry is likely Romney.

Also, I did not, and would never, suggest that anyone needs to “shut up.” But I’m not crazy about the sniping from either side – pro-Perry or anti-Perry (and that’s not to say that you’re sniping, either). I feel there is, or maybe there should be, a difference between sniping and vetting – I can’t say, precisely, what difference is. It’s more like I know it when I see it and Bachman, e.g., has been sniping.

Because you’re one of the most intellectually rigorous, hard-working, well-rounded, astute, and profound observers on our side, I’m hoping that you’ll help keep it a “fair fight” instead of “rough and tumble.”
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:36 am

I’ve always liked Bachman but it appears she suffers from a wealth of credulity.
Dianna Deeley
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:47 am

You took the pixels right off my screen, sir!
Dianna Deeley
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:49 am

Please don’t ever shut up.

Just promise me I won’t have to vote for Romney, please?
Dianna Deeley
September 14th, 2011 @ 3:11 am

“Wealth”? Or “dearth”?

I’m so tired, I’m reading that three different ways. Sorry. Can you help me out?
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 3:20 am

Don’t be so hard on yourself. I often astound myself.

Her over abundance of credulity undermines her credibility.
Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE PRISONER ON Flight 1884. I’ll just note that I was never impressed with Pawlenty, and made that…
September 13th, 2011 @ 11:53 pm

[…] PRISONER ON Flight 1884. I’ll just note that I was never impressed with Pawlenty, and made that clear early […]
Pat
September 14th, 2011 @ 4:51 am

I’m starting to think the guy who thought Palin suckered Perry into the race is onto something.

http://conservatives4palin.com/2011/08/accidental-good-fortune-or-strategic-genius-by-the-woman-tony-knowles-called-alley-cat-smart.html

Look at what is going down. Perry and Romney are dueling over issues where Palin can deliver a smack-down punch. The Arctic fox is running for free, witness the media coverage of her last two speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire, while Perry and Romney duke it out.

Read her Iowa speech. It is better than listening to her screechy voice.

http://www.sarahpac.com/posts/governor-palins-speech-at-the-restoring-america-tea-party-of-america-rally-in-indianola-iowa-video-and-transcript

Then something funny happened. Newt Gingrich and a NYT columnist examined what she said in Iowa. They both realized that she had shifted the debate from Republican vs Democrat to the People vs a corrupt Washington establishment. Tea Party Patriots have a voice, and it is Sarah.

She put “Death Panels” into the debate. She just added “crony capitalism”, and that is a dagger to the heart of Obama.
Vidkun Quisling
September 14th, 2011 @ 4:51 am

I live in Texas. Perry has definite exposure on the crony capitalism issue. Bachmann is beyond contemptible, however, in trotting the vaccines cause autism nonsense. It’s the mark of a politician who is either stupid, nuts, or willing to say anything to advance her political career. If Rush is bashing her, it’s well-deserved.
Pat
September 14th, 2011 @ 4:58 am

I thought Pawlenty was the Peewee Herman candidate. No gravitas whatsoever. He might be a nice person, but… Now that he has endorsed Romney, I know him for what he is: YAFRINO.
Palin Derangement Syndrome – On The Right | Palin's Posse
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:12 am

[…] today, in a post Stacy McCain made this observation: Why are Perry’s defenders so doggone […]
TomGrey
September 14th, 2011 @ 6:55 am

Rush had high praise for Bachmann’s performance last night, but in the clip below he says she’s gone too far today, jumping the shark over repeating the anecdote she heard last night after the debate that suggested that Garadasil might cause mental retardation

There HAS been an increase in autism. Until it is known what the causes are, the anecdotes about “normal” kids getting vaccinated, and then becoming autistic, are stronger influences on the parents of such kids then current Contemporary Wisdom of ignorance of those causes.
How much evidence is needed to “prove” that there is a 1 in a 1,000 chance? Or 1 in 100,000?
And if it IS 1 in 100,000 does that justify not getting vaccinated?

“X might cause bad Y”, when there is little double-blind study evidence, but many personal anecdotes, doesn’t sound too bad to me.

Great post about silly, “no charisma” T-Paw, but I was surprised you only mentioned negative Rush, w/o the positive.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 9:26 am

Both Romney and Perry are flawed — Romney is fatally tainted by Romneycare and Perry is a squish on illegal immigration. As far as crony capitalism is concerned, what politician is free from that charge? None that I can see.

Bachman is sadly erratic and ill-informed; Cain is an engaging person but really pretty much a novelty candidate.

Ron Paul is…Ron Paul and 5o% insane. Or not. Hard to tell, really, but his foreign policy alone is guaranteed to ensure that he cannot be elected.

Newt is on fire, but a non-starter for oh-so-many reasons. Huntsman is Obama Lite.

We just really have a crappy field to choose from, as usual. I think the more important election races are for Congress, by far.
Weekly geekery « The Home for Wayward Statisticians
September 14th, 2011 @ 5:46 am

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Matt Lewis
September 14th, 2011 @ 10:59 am

The obvious defense for him on illegal immigration is that it’s not a state’s responsibility to enforce immigration. But when the feds fail, the state has to figure out how to deal with the result.

He got part ways there by talking about trying to make productive members of society out of illegals, and the federalist argument seems obvious and consistent for him. This wouldn’t make any immigration hawks happy, but that ship sailed before he jumped into the race.

I think there are certainly ways that states can cooperate with the feds (e.g., E-VERIFY), though the current denizens of the executive branch seem determined to make that more difficult.
Matt Lewis
September 14th, 2011 @ 11:21 am

Increases in diagnosed autism. Just like there’s more mental illness around than there used to be.

The plural of anecdote is not data. The vaccine / autism link is just bullshit with absolutely no rigor behind at. And guess what, not vaccinating kids kills kids. Spreading stupid misinformation about vaccines just encourages people to avoid keeping their kids (and others who rely on herd immunity!) safe. Stop it.
Darcy
September 14th, 2011 @ 11:22 am

You know, I always thought it would be a great thing, considering the field that was shaping up, for Palin and Perry to get into the race. I looked forward with a sense of relief at the idea. Two contenders, imperfect for sure, but in my opinion vastly preferable to the field shaping up.

Now that Perry’s in, and the knives have come out from Palin supporters (of which I considered myself staunchly one), I am so completely turned off to Sarah Palin’s possible candidacy that even I am shocked. And when Sarah herself went after Perry, that kind of sealed it for me. Maybe I’ll change my mind again, but for now, I do NOT respect her “shadow candidacy”. It is cowardly, in my opinion. And destructive, yes! Of course it is.

Maybe I’m just reacting, and this feeling will go away. I don’t know. But I read the “Palin Derangement” link at the end of your post and just wanted to scream. “Goddammit!!!! She is not freaking in the race. She may never be. Why would you (and others) want to destroy ANY of the candidates who actually had the courage to get in simply to hold this phantom place for Sarah?? WHY??”

With all due respect, THAT seems deranged.

And by the way, I have never gotten the idea that Ace hates Sarah. He doesn’t like her. He doesn’t like the way many of her supporters act. He sees it as irrational, divisive behavior. He’s looking brilliant right now to me.
Kirsten Mortensen
September 14th, 2011 @ 11:39 am

@ brendak You’ve just about summed it up as per our choices. And what does it say about the Republican party? They don’t deserve to hold the WH…
dlr
September 14th, 2011 @ 12:09 pm

I WANT to like Perry. I read his book, and I was incredibly impressed. But live, he is terrible. He has this ‘deer in the headlights look’ of panic every time he has to say anything. I was sitting on the edge of my seat worrying for him that he wouldn’t be able to cope, wouldn’t be able to find the word, wouldn’t have an answer. I can’t tell if he was either seriously sedated, or is just painfully inarticulate, or is just not bright.

How about Gingrich?
Andrew Patrick
September 14th, 2011 @ 12:55 pm

Crony capitalism, shmony capitalism: Merck always gives money to the GOP. They gave Perry some AFTER the Gardasil EO was rescinded; and all told, they gave him less than my annual salary (which is a pittance). If that’s all it takes to buy a politician, I might start my own PAC.

I’m not in love with Perry, but he’s done more of what we would like to see get done than anyone else in the race. He’s implemented the kind of reforms I would like to see. I don’t care if his hands aren’t simon-pure after decades spent in Texas Politics. I don’t care if he doesn’t play nice with others. When Jesus Christ or Zombie Reagan announces his candidacy, I might think different, but right now, he looks like the best of the field.

Herman Cain: Nice guy, smart, in a sensible world he’d be polling better. But the resume is just too thin. Let’s give him a cabinet job and see what happens.

Mitt Romney: I voted for McCain in 2008. I’ll vote for him against Obama. Unless the Libertarians nominate Gary Johnson.

Michelle Bachmann: A stand-in for Palin. No one on God’s earth would consider a person of her experience for the Presidency if she didn’t remind us of our sainted Alaskan Martyr. She’s prepared to serve up more red meat than a butcher at a Chicago tailgate party, but she was never going to be the nominee. And now she’s jumped with both feet into the fringe. Bachmann would be as fumblingly inept a President as Obama has been. Period.

John Hunts… not going to bother.

Newt Gingrich would make a kickass Secretary of any department in any GOP administration. I hope someone makes use of him.

And Palin? I’d pick her over Bachmann. I’d pick her over Perry if I thought she’d made a real effort to appeal to the center. But I haven’t seen that. I’ve seen a lot of “insurgency” type barnstorming. I’ve seen a lot of teasing. She’s got half a campaign. She’d go down like Alf Landon, and I think she knows it.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 1:57 pm

Measles is making a big comeback because parents aren’t allowing their children to be vaccinated.

“[Measles] fatality rates range from 1 to 5%, and can reach 30% in refugee settings and among malnourished children. Despite there being a safe and effective vaccine available for over four decades, measles is still a leading cause of death for young children.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:21 pm

I’m guessing Perry’s open-borders position is due to some serious promises made to the big Stetsons in Texas who have a vested interest in cheap labor regardless of its impact on the country and culture. Ahem. Anyone who confuses anything Hunter Thompson wrote with the facts will find Howard Zinn a good read.
Quartermaster
September 14th, 2011 @ 5:06 pm

The main problem with Palin is she does appeal to the middle. The rest are so far out on the leftist fringe (and that includes the mainstream GOP characters like Romney and Perry) that she seems fringe herself.

Never forget that the GOp began as a a leftist party and have never changed. The Dems started as a conservatives and turned into screaming idiots during Wilson’s misrule. Jefferson and Jackson would be soundly rejected by the idiots that run their party now.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 5:14 pm

1. Okay, between “Clockwork Orange” and “Fear and Loathing ’72”, which one’s fiction anymore?

2. “Texas governor, nice guy, tall, dark and ruggedly handsome, not really good at the talky-explainy thing” is a problem for 2012, for somewhat the same reason as “candidate named Bush” is.
Garym
September 14th, 2011 @ 5:23 pm

Bullshit!!
Garym
September 14th, 2011 @ 5:34 pm

Some of the staunchist Perry supporters have trashed and attacked Palin with abandon and now that Perry is in the race his supporters can’t take the vettin’ he’s been getting. Ace has been pushing his “Palin supporters” BS for months and now that his prefered candidate is in, he has ramped up his hate for Palin. Does he and you expect us not to fight back?
Andrew Patrick
September 14th, 2011 @ 6:19 pm

I’m sorry, but I don’t follow. What “middle” does she appeal to?
dustbury.com » Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
September 14th, 2011 @ 2:59 pm

[…] bowed out of the GOP presidential race, and subsequently threw his support to Mitt Romney. Robert Stacy McCain would like you to know that this was not technically an underhand throw: Professional campaign operatives are all hired guns. I’m sure they have their ideals — […]
Tennwriter
September 14th, 2011 @ 7:01 pm

I told some lefties some of Palin’s positions in the past (just after reading her bookk when it was first out. American Life, that is.) and they said they agreed with some.

Palin’s pretty centrist.
Tennwriter
September 14th, 2011 @ 7:20 pm

Darcy,
Relatively few of us want to destroy Perry. So why not pull that throttle back from 11, eh?

Once you calm down, and look at things coolheadedly, then I think you’ll see things different.

Myself, I like Perry. I see some problems, but then as Andrew Patrick puts it with Zombie Reagan, all men have problems, and that included Reagan.

I do think there was a definite ‘get on the bandwagon’ thing, and I refuse to do so. I also think that the Perry-ites have to some degree calmed down and backed off a bit, which is good. They are thus unlikethe McCainiacs of last electoral season who could not be taught good manners with a howitzer.

I would suggest you look at Sarah Palin’s actions as part of her plans. I know, that seems so obvious to say, but so many people seem to miss it. She is doing what she wants to do, and this may be her battle plan for getting to the WH, or for ensuring that the R’s pretend to be conservative for a bit longer. In either case, she has earned her right to do so.

Your complaints about her strategy being cowardly sound like the song of the big, fat guy fighting the littler, healthier, and more agile guy…..’Stop running around, and fight like a man!’. I suppose the British commanders who chased Gen. Washington around would have yelled the same thing, but Washington was not so foolish as to listen. He fought his war, and ended up winning.

As to destructive…..I wonder about Sarah and Sun Tzu. Superexcellence in warfare is to defeat your enemy without fighting him. I wonder if, in the end, Perry is going to bow to Palin’s superior skill, admit he cannot lay a finger on her, and politely ask if he can be VP. And then Romney will shortly thereafter bow out as he realizes he has no chance.

Maybe I’m dreaming, but ask yourself this question: Why is Sarah doing what she’s doing? And if your answer is ’cause she’s a jerk’, you might want to take a vacation from politics for a week to regain perspective.
Andrew Patrick
September 14th, 2011 @ 8:24 pm

Point taken.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2011 @ 10:03 pm

“Clockwork Orange” was someones vision of what the future might look like and at least to some, was a realistic prophecy. Jury is still out on that one here, in Britain not so much.
Darcy
September 14th, 2011 @ 10:05 pm

Look, you don’t know me. I was about as strong of a supporter of Sarah Palin as you could get. I have talked for a year of being ready and eager to work on her campaign. But that was a Sarah I believed in in a way I don’t now. I’ve tried to explain it and I’m not the only one, I’m sure of it.

I haven’t attacked Palin anywhere. I really admired her. I’ve defended her over and over. I understand that you think my feelings are misguided or over-emotional or wrong. Doesn’t make me wrong and you right. But she has lost me. So I guess you can write me off as an insignificant casualty.

I don’t know why Sarah is attacking her friend this way. I have no idea. I just don’t admire it, period. This was not “Gee, I don’t like the way this looks and I’d love for my friend Rick Perry to elaborate”. This was a deliberate accusation. A conviction, even! This after the guy had rescinded his stupid EO before it ever went into effect AND said he was wrong. And I’m supposed to respect whom in this?

No. I don’t admire it. It’s turned me off.
Tennwriter
September 14th, 2011 @ 10:44 pm

I went over to Ace of Spades and found out about the issue that got you angry.

I find myself in the calmer position still.

I’ll need to research this more, but let’s say Palin did what you said….

Its a mistake, a wrong then.

Just like Perry did wrong with his ‘stupid EO’.

I hear Perry is basically an amnesty guy (and the defense of Perryites over at AOS is that state governors don’t have much to do with that…..um, tell that to Gov. Brewer)….My response is to give Perry a free shot (Sure guy you are wrong, but everyone’s wrong sometime).

I hear Perry got money from Merck. And the defense is that everyone does it. True enough, but I really want something better than ‘everyone is a scum, and so am I’.

This is my perspective. I don’t expect perfection from Palin or Perry or Bachmann or Cain or Santorum or Paul or even Gov. Asterisk. You seem to have gone ballistic by your account over one mistake or wrong in the heat of battle.

I’m still looking at Perry. Truth to tell, Dan Riehl’s intuition that he is less of the Washington smasher than Palin is, is the most serious problem I have with Perry. We need someone who will clean the Augean stables, and by that, I’m not exzaggerating. Others say such things, but evidently they don’t mean it. I do.

I have not written Perry off.

But I went over to AOS, and I heard tell from some other Palinista that AOS hated Palin. I thought to myself ‘ah, they’re getting too wound up, Ace ain’t like that’. But then I see Ace himself admit to his strong dislike in many words in the comments.

And in the comments I read a lot of nastiness.

And y’know what I said about Perryites being UNLIKE those nasty, disgusting McCainiacs….Can’t say that now.

The Perryites need to back this down NOW, or they will find out what serious irritation looks like. I was going to vote for Hillary Clinton I said a numbero f times rather than John McCain. Despite the McCainiacs, or maybe because of their bullying.

If you want Perry to win, you’d better find a way to convince me that he is more Conservative than Palin, and do so without trying to bully me into it.

I’m not convinced that we as a Nation do not NEED another four years of Obama as chastisement for the Establishment. The RINOs still have not learned their lesson.

And I think that Obama may very well have been better for the Nation than McCain because Obama woke us up.
Darcy
September 14th, 2011 @ 11:09 pm

I’m not bullying anyone. My preference was decidedly Palin if she were to run. She is not a candidate at this time.

Given the field, I think Perry is probably the most conservative *electable* candidate. I didn’t like the vaccine EO, but, reading as much as I could find on it, I didn’t draw the same conclusion as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann was flat out bizarre in her wig out over it, so needless to say I’m not swayed by her, either. I have given him a cautious pass on this. Especially in light of the fact that the EO was rescinded before it went into effect and the man has said he was wrong.

I disagree that his immigration position equates to amnesty, but I am listening hard to his answers.
Garym
September 15th, 2011 @ 1:33 am

I appologize for the BS statement. However, sometimes what someone doesn’t say can effect a “friendship”. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember much of anybody coming to Palin’s defense during the Gifford’s shooting, let alone her “friend” Rick Perry. The only prominant republican to say anything was Tim Pawlenty, hell FOX even had Geraldo smeering her for 2 hours before anyone knew anything about the shooter.
Palin, with her life story and work for the conservative cause, has earned my respect and support.
Perry, I barely know and needs to be vetted, otherwise we end up with a Republican Obama.
P.S. If there is any video of Perry defending Palin, I would appreciate a link and gladly eat crow.
pete e
September 15th, 2011 @ 1:08 pm

“Conventional Wisdom also dictates that it’s bad business for Republicans to nominate a Southerner…”

You only cite the irrational reasons. The real reasons it is a good idea to pick a Republican nominee from a leftish state is because they have proven they can operate in a leftish environment while still getting things accomplished and not being pushed to the left.