And its all about RICK PERRY who joined the campaign last week. He has garnered more news in one week than all the rest combined.

We will continue to refine this product over the next 15 months. It's your tool to stay informed about your favorite candidates. We hope it helps you make an informed choice in the 2012 Primary election. kcapron@maineccs.org.

from Climate Depot

Politico Refuted: 'Politico's disingenuous attack on Rick Perry': 'That's your evidence for Gore's then-extant 'crusade'? Gore mentioned it in his A to Z. See? -- But everyone except his friends, family and acquaintances knew that Gore had been Mr. Global Warming since the 1980s...That's weak, Politico. You should be better than that'

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

Texas governor had some harsh words for the administration at campaign events.

from The Daily Caller by Chris Horner

On Monday, Politico published an article suggesting that Perry is either a liar or a former environmentalist.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook - ABC News

ABC News' Arlette Saenz (@arlettesaenz) reports: Despite holding personal pro-life beliefs, Texas Gov. Rick Perry categorized abortion as a states’ rights issue today, saying that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, it should be up to the states to decide...

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook - ABC News

"You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don't," Perry told reporters.

from Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates ...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani earn Positive Intensity Scores of 21 and 20, respectively -- among the highest of any candidate or potential candidate Gallup measures. Giuliani leads Perry in name recognition among Republicans, 86% vs. 55%.

from Gold Standard | Republican Primary | The Daily Caller by InternAdmin

Former representatives, ex-Gingrich staffers, lobbyists highlight list

from Gold Standard | Republican Primary | The Daily Caller by Jeff Winkler

'What if we had a better option for President? We do. Rick Perry'

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Josh Harkinson

Remember last week, when Texas Governor Rick Perry sounded a lot like a gay marriage supporter? Well, nevermind. All that talk about how states should be allowed to decide for themselves about allowing same-sex matrimony might have been great national press fodder, but it was too good to last. Yesterday, Perry appeared on the radio show of the Family Research Council to set things straight:

The real fear is states like New York will change the definition of marriage for Texas. That is the reason the Federal Marriage Amendment is being offered. It's a small group of activist judges and really a small handful, if you will, of states and these liberal special interest groups that are intent on a redefinition, if you will, of marriage on the nation for all of us, which I adamantly oppose. Indeed, to not pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would impinge on Texas' and other states' right not to have [gay] marriage forced upon them.

Of course, the Federal Marriage Amendment would also prevent any state from legalizing gay marriage at home. Which means that Perry thinks gay marriage "should be New York's perogative," except when it isn't.

H/T Texas Freedom Network.

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Tim Murphy

The race for the Republican presidential nomination does not appear to be going well for Gary Johnson. According to the most recent Zogby poll, the libertarian former two-term New Mexico governor, climber of Mount Everest, and consumer of medical marijuana is polling at 1 percent among likely GOP presidential primary voters nationwide. That's 24 points behind front-runner Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.); 10 points behind fellow libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas); and 1 point behind former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who at this point is basically just trying to sell more copies of his books. Johnson is trailing Fred Karger, the gay former dark-arts operative who is running solely for the sake of hounding Mitt Romney, by 1 point.

But if you ask Gary Johnson, he is exactly where he wants to be. "The vantage point that I have is the only vantage point that I've ever had in politics, which is being last," Johnson explained on Friday following an address to the National Conference of College Republicans in downtown Washington. "I've run for two political offices in my life: governor of New Mexico, and reelection as governor of New Mexico. This was just where I was in New Mexico."

Continue Reading »

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off Ahead Of 2012 by Kristen Soltis

Since the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry into the Republican presidential field, there has been a great deal of airtime and ink dedicated to commenting on his viability in both the primary election and the general. When it comes to the primary, recent surveys have shown Perry doing well, coming in a close second behind Gov. Mitt Romney. As Perry's name ID improves (nationally, he hovered around 56% before his announcement), he's like to see a bump in those numbers.

But in a year when Republicans are hungry to defeat President Obama and to regain control of the White House, will "electability" play a role in the party's selection process? Moreover, just how "electable" is Gov. Perry nationwide?

There are two emerging camps of thought on this issue. The first, dominant at the moment, is the idea that Gov. Perry will run into trouble as a national candidate, allowing President Obama to win swing groups and swing states. But the second, first explored by National Journal's Josh Kraushaar, is that Perry was able to do reasonably well in his 2010 re-election race among groups like independents, women, and Latinos. Read More...

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Brad Johnson

Our guest blogger is Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, associate professor at Texas Tech University and director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center. With her husband Andrew Farley, a Christian author and pastor of an evangelical bible church in west Texas, Dr. Hayhoe has written a book about what climate change means to people of faith.

ThinkProgress asked Dr. Hayhoe to respond to Gov. Rick Perry's (R-TX) argument that climate science is a "contrived phony mess" based on "so-called science" in a "secular carbon cult." The science of climate change is based on fundamental physical principles that we've known about for several hundred years. Every time we burn coal, gas, or oil, it produces carbon dioxide. By digging massive amounts of these fossil fuels out of the ground and burning them, we are disrupting the natural carbon cycle and causing carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas; its properties can easily be measured in a lab (and I have done it myself). As it builds up in the atmosphere, it traps heat, raising the average temperature of the earth.

There are many lines of evidence we rely on to document the long-term warming of the earth in response to human activities. Thermometers and satellites are just two of these. For many of us, we only have to look in our own backyards to see the evidence with our own eyes. Trees are blooming earlier in the year, winters are getting warmer, summers are getting hotter, extreme heat is becoming more frequent, birds, insects, and other animals are moving northward ... in all, more than 25,000 independent lines of physical and biological evidence point to a warming world.

None of us are happy with the idea that humans are altering the average conditions of the planet. If I had my druthers, I know that I would much rather it be a natural cycle that we couldn't do anything about! But the truth is this: if our planet were being controlled by the sun, or by natural cycles, it would have cooled over the last few decades as we've received less energy from the sun than we did before. Instead, the planet has only gotten warmer.

Shooting the messenger who brings bad news is an old habit; but we all know it does nothing to change the news itself. In the same way, dismissing hundreds of years' worth of science because it doesn't give us the answer we want to hear will not change the facts.

Humans are altering the average conditions of the planet. So what can we do?

We can continue to challenge the reality of the issue; or we can seize this as an opportunity to wean ourselves off our dependence on the old, dirty, inefficient, and limited fuels of the past. Instead, we can make wise choices - conserving the resources we do have, and investing in our own economy to develop clean sources of energy that will not run out on us and will ensure a better lives for our children. Who doesn't want that??

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

Did you know the newest addition to the GOP presidential race was once a Democrat? Here are 10 things you might not know about the governor who, pre-politics, almost became a Southwest Airlines pilot.

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Kevin Drum

The LA Times investigates the big-money culture of Texas politics, which has gotten even bigger and money-er since Rick Perry became governor:

Perry has received a total of $37 million over the last decade from just 150 individuals and couples, who are likely to form the backbone of his new effort to win the Republican presidential nomination....Nearly half of those mega-donors received hefty business contracts, tax breaks or appointments under Perry, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.

Perry, campaigning Monday at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, declined to comment when asked how he separated the interests of his donors from the needs of his state. His aides vigorously dispute that his contributors received any perks. "They get the same thing that all Texans get," said spokesman Mark Miner.

Nearly half! And this doesn't even include anything about David Nance and the largesse Perry distributes via his $200 million state-managed venture capital slush fund. Doling out political favors in industrial quantities is obviously something that isn't frowned upon by Texas political culture, and Perry has taken it to whole new levels.

Still, as long as all these good 'ol boys get all the same stuff that all Texans get, I guess it's OK.

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off Ahead Of 2012 by The Huffington Post News Editors

Newly-minted Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry raised the idea of turning to Predator drones to help secure the country's border with Mexico during a stop in New Hampshire over the weekend, the Boston Globe reports. According to the local outlet:

Perry noted many unarmed aircraft are already flown in the area each day as practice for the Air Force pilots who will guide them overseas.

Read More...

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Ian Millhiser

The Texas Supreme Court is absolutely dominated by Gov. Rick Perry's (R) nominees. Seven of the Texas Supreme Court's nine members were appointed Perry, and no one has benefited more from this arrangement than wealthy corporations. The Texas Supreme Court "sided with consumers in 27 percent of cases involving an individual against a corporation or government agency - and it reversed jury verdicts in 72 percent of cases."

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Faiz Shakir

Artist Mario Piperni's rendering of Bush and Perry photos.

In his early stages of his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is already fighting off comparisons to another self-assured, former Texas governor who swaggered into the White House. "Is Rick Perry too George W. Bush-y?" a headline on the Washington Post asks. Joshua Green on The Atlantic similarly wondered, "Is America Ready for 'George W. Bush on Steroids?'"

Attempting to subtly distance himself from the unpopular Bush, Perry said yesterday, "Our records are quite different ... I went to Texas A&M. He went to Yale." Even this very mild distancing of Bush was too much for former Bush "architect" Karl Rove.

On Fox News this morning, Rove complained that Perry is trying to contrast himself with Bush "in a way that's dismissive of the former president," adding "now, why one would do that, I don't know." (Bush left office with an approval rating of 22 percent.)

Rove then argued that Perry and Bush are actually quite close:

[In 1998, Bush] moved heaven and earth to get Rick Perry elected as his running mate. ... I know from the perspective of the former president that he has a cordial, personal strong friendship of nearly two decades with the governor. I think that's true of the governor too. But why he falls into this pattern of sounding like he's being dismissive of the former president is not smart politics strategically or tactically.

Host Martha MacCallum observed, "It sounds like you feel like he's been ungrateful to the Bushes." Watch it:
During the interview, Rove also criticized Rick Perry for his "misstatement" on Ben Bernanke being potentially guilty of treason.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Brad Johnson

At a campaign stop in Iowa last night, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) claimed that the Obama administration is "trying to scare people" about natural gas fracking. He told the attendees of a house party in Cedar Rapids that natural gas drilling with hydraulic fracturing has never damaged groundwater, and expressed concern that Iowans would miss out on the natural gas boom:

You have this administration talking about stopping hydraulic fracking, trying to scare people, saying that hydraulic fracking somehow or other is going to damage the groundwater, and so we've got to stop this. Not one time that I'm aware of has hydraulic fracking impacted groundwater. And if we don't have the ability to frack, then all of the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale - you know, we don't know what's under the surface here in Iowa. There may be copious amounts of natural gas down there. Because the Eagle Ford in Texas, no one knew it was there until four or five years ago. New technologies finding new ways to bring this energy source. And we need to be, we need to be talking about ways to make America as independent energywise as we can. And it covers the watershed.

Watch video shot by ThinkProgress:
Under President Obama, natural gas drilling has enjoyed a renaissance, so much so that overproduction has led to a collapse in natural gas prices. The heads of the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency have all praised the "important energy resource" of natural gas and have expressed confidence that fracking can be done safely.

Criticism of the explosion in fracking has primarily come from concerned citizens, who have seen their water catch on fire, their land seized by drillers, their rivers contaminated by spills, and found wells gone dry or poisoned. Most of the damage is caused by other steps in the drilling process than the deep, high-pressure injection of a secret mixture of toxic fluids that is fracking, but the EPA documented contamination of groundwater by fracking in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was president.

The Obama administration is considering whether to enforce clean air laws at drilling sites, which have blanketed Wyoming with poisonous haze. An industry-friendly panel for the Department of Energy recommended that frackers stop using diesel fuel and that they disclose the ingredients in fracking fluid. Perry might not be aware of the dangers of unregulated fracking, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Matthew Yglesias

Is Rick Perry a 10th Amendment nutter who wants to deem the entire federal government unconstitutional or is he, as Erica Greider argues, a savvy business conservative who you underestimate at your peril. Both, I would argue. That's in part because Texas is a bit unusual for a conservative jurisdiction in the United States.

To understand what makes Texas different, start with a more typical state like Alabama. Alabama is poor, which is to say it contains many poor residents. But it's also conservative, which is to say that Alabama's prosperous residents have very right-wing views. Since Alabama has so many poor people, it's actually a substantial net beneficiary of federal largess. Now that largess is generally targeted at low-income Alabamians, so Alabama conservatives don't really care. And yet, eliminating Medicaid, SNAP, SSI, etc. and lowering taxes would also have a detrimental impact on non-poor Alabamians. Plenty of Alabama conservatives in good standing may own grocery stores, be doctors or hospital executives, etc. So there's a level of tension between the vision of the ideological purist and the concrete banality that everyone is on some level or other sucking on the federal teat. This tends to either annoy or amuse progressives depending on mood.

But Texas is different! Texas is a substantial net contributor of federal tax money. What's more, Texas is really big. Having the federal government vanish is, in the Texas context, not just an ideological vision it's also a totally plausible pro-business initiative in a way that's not at all the case in the rest of the country. When Rick Perry jokes about secession, it's not just swagger. An independent Republic of Texas would be a completely viable entity (more people than Ireland or Sweden or the Netherlands or Australia and closing the gap with Canada pretty quickly). So Perry's ideas, though wild and extreme, aren't the ideas of an impractical person the way they would be if Bobby Jindal started yammering on about them. From the Texas conservative perspective, complete abdication of the federal role in the domestic economy is a perfectly plausible idea. For most of the rest of us, it would be a total non-starter. Which is exactly what makes Perry's view so radical. But from where he's been sitting for the past 10 years, it's a perfectly serious proposal.

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off Ahead Of 2012 by The Huffington Post News Editors

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is out with a new campaign ad taking aim at Republican presidential rivals Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney, as well as President Barack Obama.

"It's the story of a lost city, lost opportunity, lost hope," says a narrator in the spot. "A story of failed policies, failed leadership. A story of smooth-talking politicians, games of 'he said, she said,' rhetoric and division. One man has stood apart, stood strong and true. Voting against every tax increase. every unbalanced budget, every time. Standing up to the Washington machine. Guided by principle. Ron Paul, the one who will stop the spending, save the dollar, create jobs, bring peace, the one who will restore liberty. Ron Paul, the one who can beat Obama and restore America now."

According to Politico, the ad is set to hit the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire. The spot comes on the heels of the Ames Straw Poll in which Paul placed second after Bachmann, who came out on top in the test of conservative strength. Read More...

from Republican presidential candidates hiding in plain sight ...

Of Fed chief, Texas governor says: "I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas"

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Igor Volsky

Rick Perry cited health data about the high risk of cervical cancer among young women when he defended his decision to mandate sixth-graders to receive the HPV vaccine in 2007, but some critics saw ulterior motives in the Texas governor's order to make small-government Texas the first state in the nation to require vaccination. After all, Perry had not consulted Republicans in the legislator before issuing the requirement early that February and had expressed no prior interest in expanding access to women's health care - or doing much of anything to improve public health in the state.

And so, Perry's detractors turned to his relationship with the vaccine manufacturer, Merck - which stood to profit from the order - and the company's stealth campaign to push states to adopt the requirement. From the Associated Press' 2007 account:

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country. [...]

Perry has several ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company's three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, his former chief of staff. His current chief of staff's mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government. [...]

Perry also received $6,000 from Merck's political action committee during his re-election campaign.

Shorty after Perry issued the order on Feb. 2, 2007, the AP reported that "Perry's chief of staff had met with key aides about the vaccine on October 16, the same day Merck's political action committee" donated to the governor. Still, Perry dismissed all charges of impropriety. "When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer, for me not to say, 'Please come into my office and let's hear your story for the people of the state of Texas, for young ladies who are dying of cancer,' would be the height of irresponsibility," the Republican governor said. "Whether or not they contributed to my campaign, I would suggest to you, are some of those weeds that we are trying to cut our way through."

What made matters worse, however, was that Merck had "made headlines in 2004 for failing to disclose that its painkiller Vioxx raised the risk of cardiac arrest and stroke in patients" and so critics worried that the company's new HPV vaccination was yet untested and could suffer from defect.

The opposition proved overwhelming and Perry quickly backed down from his requirement, allowing the executive order to be overturned by the legislature (only three of 181 lawmakers voted against the bill rescinding the requirement). But he didn't go quietly, chastising lawmakers in his own party for misrepresenting his motives and intentions. "In the next year, more than a thousand women will likely be diagnosed with this insidious yet mostly preventable disease," said Perry. "I challenge legislators to look these women in the eyes and tell them, 'We could have prevented this disease for your daughters and granddaughters, but we just didn't have the gumption to address all the misguided and misleading political rhetoric.'"

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Matthew Yglesias

The Rick Perry remarks that finally have Washington talking monetary policy can be found below. But to make a long story short, asked a question about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Perry said "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion."
I don't really think reporters should take Perry's views on treason or who does and doesn't deserve to be killed all that seriously. After all, Perry has a record as an advocate of secession from the United States and as an executer of an innocent man. So if you want to do a story about Perry's reckless ideas about patriotism or odd notions about when it's appropriate to kill someone, I would suggest those incidents as offering more fruitful lines of inquiry. There's a real issue here about policy substance.

Now "printing money," if you know what you're talking about, is what the Fed does all the time. See, for example, the steady increase in the monetary base throughout the Reagan years. The basic issue here is that people use dollars to conduct economic activity. Over time, the US population grows. So does the US economy. So does world population and the world economy. So people want more dollars. And a responsible central banker brings them into being. Lots of people, admittedly, don't understand this. It's a bit obscure and doesn't get discussed much. And, frankly, it's fine if you didn't know that the monetary base just generally increases over time. But if you don't know this, then when asked questions about it you should probably say "I don't know" instead of saying something totally wrong. Compare Perry's conduct with that of Mitt Romney who to his credit has always tried to avoid getting sucked into the populist right's cesspool of monetary madness.

But now back to Perry. One thing he does seem to understand in these remarks is that if the Federal Reserve were to engage in expansionary monetary policy over the next 18 months, that would increase the economic growth rate. My view is that an increase in the economic growth rate would be a good thing, and that therefore the Fed should do this. Perry's view appears to be that an increase in the economic growth rate would help Barack Obama's re-election bid and therefore any steps to make it happen would be borderline treason. That, to me, seems like news. Perry is running on Texas' impressive record of job creation, but he's an avowed opponent of creating more jobs nationwide.

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off Ahead Of 2012 by The Huffington Post News Editors

Rick Perry is in it to win it in 2012, and just as the Texas governor gets going with his campaign, he already seems to be running from his record. On the Democratic side, Team Obama is mounting a counteroffensive to combat Republican attacks on the heels of the Ames Straw Poll. Read More...

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Josh Dorner

Speaking to reporters tonight following an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared to question President Obama's patriotism. In response to a question from Danny Yadron of the Wall Street Journal, who asked Perry if he was suggesting that Obama didn't love this country, Perry replied: " I dunno, you need to ask him." Watch it: Earlier in the evening, Perry also made a violent threat against Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Update

The Wall Street Journal's Danny Yadron also reports that Perry doubled down on comments he made over the weekend when he said he was running for president to make sure servicemembers have a commander-in-chief who they can respect. Tonight, the WSJ reports that Perry said:

I think people who have had the same experiences connect with people who have had the same experiences. That's human nature. If you polled the military, the active duty and veterans, and said 'would you rather have a president of the United States that never served a day in the military or someone who is a veteran?' They've going to say, I would venture, that they would like to have a veteran."

The president had the opportunity to serve his country. I'm sure at some time he made the decision that isn't what he wanted to do.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

"Printing more money to play politics ... is almost ... treasonous."

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off Ahead Of 2012 by The Huffington Post News Editors

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who recently announced that he is running for president in 2012, had some harsh words for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday.

ThinkProgress has video of Perry in Iowa explaining that if Bernanke "prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas." Perry went on to say that if Bernanke printed more money, the act would be "almost treasonous in my opinion." ABC News has more on Perry's comments.

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Kevin Drum

Generally speaking, blogging is like shouting into a hurricane: it might make you feel better, but hardly anyone hears you and it rarely has any real-world impact. Still, every once in a while something you write makes a teensy tiny bit of difference. So this email made my day:

I was at the Iowa State Fair today and caught Rick Perry's speech. He started talking about this stupid new regulation that would require farmers to get commercial drivers licenses if they drive their tractors across the road. I remember reading about this very issue on your blog so I yelled "That's not true" a couple of times (as can barely be heard on the video at the link) and later asked the Des Moines Register's political editor to fact check the story.

I exchanged emails with her tonight and she sent me a link to their story. So thank you for empowering Iowans like me to challenge the presidential candidates who keep coming to our state.

OK, it's not a lot. But in the fight against dumb right-wing urban legends, every little bit counts.

from 2012 Presidential Election - News, Analysis, Candidates, Polls by Kenneth P. Vogel

Allies fear his strategy could lead to attacks.

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Tim Murphy

The clearest sign yet that Michele Bachmann is not running a typical campaign for the presidency came at the end of her address Sunday night at the Black Hawk County GOP's Lincoln Day Dinner in Waterloo, Iowa. Speaking in her hometown, and taking the stage minutes after her newest, biggest competitor in the race,Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Bachmann had a surprise planned to celebrate her victory at the Ames Straw Poll.

"One thing I learned when I was little was if you come to say thank you to someone, it's a good idea if you can give them something," she said. "Have you ever been to Machine Shed restaurant? Well, I went to Machine Shed restaurant on my way here today, and I thought there is nothing more American than apple pie. And I brought the biggest, baddest, deepest apple pie that I could for you tonight."

Apple pie had already been served for dessert, which Bachmann missed because she showed up late and waited in the parking lot until Perry's speech was finished. But never mind that; she had the floor and she was rolling now. "I remember when I was a little girl at the mother-daughter banquet over at First Lutheran Church, one thing they'd always do, they'd put a piece of masking tape under a folding chair and then they'd look under your chair to see who wins the prize," she said. "Soooo - tonight this is how we're going to do it: I would like to give this apple pie to the oldest - if you don't mind - Republican mother in the room. So let's see, do we have anybody who's over 39?"

When it was all over, two standing ovations later, a 100-year-old Republican mother named Mary had come home with the biggest, baddest, deepest apple pie in Waterloo and the audience that had been so smitten with Perry moments earlier was reminded of what had made Bachmann such a political force in the first place. And Bachmann had one last treat for the crowd. "I've got some Sharpie pens," she said. "So if any of you are here and want some T-shirts and some autographs, I'd be more than happy to give them to you."

Politicians do not normally end campaign events by giving away prizes, daytime television-style, or inviting attendees to come up to the stage and ask them for their signature. That kind of thing tends to make you look like a celebrity, and "celebrity" is a dirty word among politicians, second only, perhaps, to "politician." Witness this memorable John McCain spot from 2008: As Dave Weigel pointed out in Slate on Monday, though, celebrity has become the defining element of Bachmann's campaign in Iowa so far.

Bachmann's "Meet Me in Ames" tour was more like the blitz you see before an election. Over one week in Iowa, before the straw poll, I saw her speak five times. A stage was set up outside, where cameras could get good, sun-bleached shots. Voters were urged to stand close to the stage or behind it - also for good shots. As "Promised Land" played, Bachmann's bus came into view; during the second playing she exited it. She spoke for roughly 20 minutes. When her speech ended, she stayed on the stage to shake hands, sign autographs, and get buttonholed in very short "thank-you-for-what-you're-doing" conversations. Only once did I see her break the format, with a town hall meeting on Monday that featured five audience questions.

Likewise, when I waited for an hour along with more than 100 others at the Iowa State Fair to hear Bachmann speak on Friday, she showed up 30 minutes late, spoke for four minutes (out of the allotted 30), and left in a mob of state troopers, press, and campaign staffers. All of that speaks to just how tightly Bachmann's handlers are managing all aspects of her candidate's image - stonewalling on unfavorable questions and turning her events into miniature rock shows (she entered the Electric Ballroom with Elvis blaring in the background and insisted that the lights be changed before she would come on stage). That might not be a terrible strategy; if the number of supporters who left bearing autographed blue T-shirts was any indication, the "celebrity" tag is part of Bachmann's appeal.

Back in Waterloo, Bachmann finished off her night with a quick press conference, which, it turned out, was mostly an excuse for the candidate to get a few more quick photos of her holding a copy of Sunday's Waterloo Courier, her Ames victory splashed across the front page. In case anyone had forgotten, she announced her name and current occupation - "My name's Michele Bachmann, and I'm running for president" - and took three quick questions from preselected reporters. Then she stood on the steps of the bus, holding up the newspaper triumphantly once more, just as she had done on stage at the beginning of her speech, and spoke as if the gaggle of flip-cams and boom mikes and pens-and-pads were just another fawning audience holding out for some red meat.

"Thank you! Thank you!" she said, and vanished into the bus.

from The Daily Caller by Jeff Poor

Washington Post columnist says 2012 presidency is down to Bachmann, Perry, Romney or Obama

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Scott Keyes

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who entered the presidential campaign on Saturday, appeared to suggest a violent response would be warranted should Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke "print more money" between now and the election. Speaking just now in Iowa, Perry said, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion." Treason is a capital offense.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Matthew Yglesias

Rick Perry holds a lot of extreme views about American public policy and constitutional law. I know that because I've read Rick Perry's book, Fed Up, which about his extreme views about American public policy and constitutional law. My method for demonstrating that Rick Perry holds these extreme views about American public policy and constitutional law was to quote accurately from Rick Perry's book. Avik Roy at National Review seems to like Rick Perry, and thus has penned a purported takedown piece of my series of accurate quotations of Rick Perry's extreme views. The key to Roy's method is to insinuate that it's somehow unfair to quote Rick Perry's views extreme views accurately. He prefers to quote other, less extreme things Perry said, and then ignore the most extreme claims.

For example, I say that Perry says that all federal banking regulation is illegal. I say that because Perry says it. Roy says this is unfair and that Perry's "principal criticism of Dodd-Frank is not on constitutional grounds, but rather that Dodd-Frank is excessively complicated, economically harmful, and unresponsive to democratic feedback." Which criticism is Perry's "principle" one is an exercise in mind-reading. In the book I read, Perry launches a series of criticisms at Dodd-Frank, including the ones Roy canvasses. He then concludes his discussion of the issue with his alternative to Dodd-Frank: "if the Constitution were shown the appropriate respect, Washington regulation writers wouldn't have to worry about underrepresented views, because they wouldn't have control over them in the first place."

Rick Perry doesn't think Dodd-Franks should be replaced with some different, simpler, more growth-friendly, more responsive set of federal banking regulations. He says that federal bank regulation is unconstitutional. Which is why I say that Perry says that federal bank regulation is unconstitutional.

Roy's entire piece is like that. Rick Perry says that the Depression didn't end "until World War II, when FDR was finally persuaded to unleash private enterprise." I point out that it's absurd to say that FDR unleashed private enterprise during World War II. Roy defends Perry by ignoring what Perry said and quoting Larry Summers on the fact that the Depression didn't end until World War II. True enough. But that's not what Perry said.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

ABC's Michael Falcone (@michaelpfalcone) and Arlette Saenz (@ArletteSaenz) report:
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Presidential candidate Rick Perry took a veiled swipe at President Obama suggesting that his own military experience would make him a better commander in chief than the ...

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Zina Saunders

Editors' note: Mother Jones illustrator Zina Saunders creates editorial animations riffing on the political news and current events of the week. In this week's animation, new GOP contender Gov. Rick Perry consults with his chief advisor and star of his recent Christians-only prayerfest - God. As always, that's Saunders doing the voices. Sound effects are courtesy of freesound.org.

from Republican presidential candidates hiding in plain sight ...

A three-way race for the nomination emerges after the Iowa straw poll, with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry as the frontrunners

from 2012 presidential candidates 'friend' social media - politics ...

National Journal: Until now, the biggest question looming over the 2012 Republican primary was who would emerge as the leading alternative to the nominal front-runner, Mitt Romney. We now know the answer to that question: Rick Perry.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

Bits and pieces from the Campaign Trail Monday

from 2012 Presidential Election - News, Analysis, Candidates, Polls by Jonathan Martin

He takes populist shot at millionaire rival.

from 2012 presidential candidates 'friend' social media - politics ...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Monday broadly attacked the Federal Reserve, accusing the agency of manipulating currency for political gain.

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Asawin Suebsaeng

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry embarks on his Obama-bashing, evangelical-courting, tea party-outdoing campaign for the presidency, we miss Molly Ivins more than ever.

The late and celebrated liberal columnist was known as a writer of sparkling political commentary infused with a trenchant wit and copious shots of zero-bullshit humor. She was the consummate Texan, a ferocious populist critic of the American right wing, and a sorely missed Mother Jones contributor. Here's the C-SPAN footage of Ivins speaking at a Mother Jones fundraising event in 1992: Ivins also had a special place in her heart for delivering blistering, bold critiques of Perry's track record as a governor, a poor thinker, and an even worse obfuscator. She was, after all, the writer who bestowed upon Perry the nicknames "The Coiffure" and "Governor Goodhair."

Here are a few highlights of Ivins tearing apart Perry's stances on the death penalty, creationism, and taking dirty money from Enron.

• "Shrub Flubs His Dub" - The Nation, June 18, 2001

In this Nation article from the advent of the Bush years, Molly Ivins makes one of her first observations of just how damn good Rick Perry's hairdo is:

Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames - it's not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House committee says, "Goodhair is much more engaged as governor than Bush was." As the refrain of the country song goes, "O Please, Dear God, Not Another One."

• "Molly Ivins August 6" - Creators Syndicate, 2002

During the "grand old slugfest" between incumbent Perry and the Democratic challenger, Tony Sanchez, Ivins highlighted Perry's misleading smear campaign against his opponent, as well as his eyebrow-raising deployment of the word "coincidental":

This, in turn, brings up the interesting role of coincidence in the life of Gov. Goodhair. Last summer, the Guv appointed an Enron executive to the state's Public Utilities Commission and, the next day, Perry got a check for $25,000 from Ken Lay. He explained this, to everyone's satisfaction, as being "totally coincidental."

• "The Not-So-Great Texas Gubernatorial Debate" - Creators Syndicate, 2006

When the next gubernatorial election cycle came around in Texas, Ivins had even more to say and write about Perry's inadequacies. In her crosshairs this time: the faux-swagger that characterized his debating style:

The Coiffure was in his usual form. As one opponent after another attacked his record, Gov. Rick Perry stood there proudly behind that 35 percent voter support he has so richly earned and simply disagreed. The Coiffure seemed to consider blanket denials a fully sufficient and adequate response.

• "Molly Ivins: Molly can't say that about Rick Perry, can she?" - Sacramento Bee, August 13, 2011

Over the weekend, the Sacramento Bee published its own collection of Ivins's editorial digs at Perry first printed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Here is one excerpt, from an article originally published on January 12, 2006, in which Ivins rages against the governor's attempts at sleazy political sleight of hand:

The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since...gee, last fall.

Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.

Now here's a droll, scathing one from June 24, 2001, on Perry's record on executing mentally handicapped inmates:

First, we Texans would like to salute the only governor we've got, Rick "Goodhair" Perry, the Ken Doll, for vetoing the bill to outlaw executing the mentally retarded.

We are Texas Proud.

Such a brilliant decision - not only is Texas now globally recognized for barbaric cruelty, but a strong majority of Texans themselves (73 percent) would prefer not to off the retarded.

Gov. Goodhair's decision - in the face of popular opinion, the Supreme Court and George W. Bush's recent conversion on this subject - is a testament to his strength of character.

Or something.

His Perryness announced, anent the veto, that Texas does not execute the retarded. I beg your pardon, Governor. Johnny Paul Penry, now on Death Row for a heart-breaking murder and the subject of two Supreme Court decisions, has an IQ between 51 and 60, believes in Santa Claus and likes coloring books.

And that's not counting the other six we know about for sure since 1990.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

The Texas governor questioned the president's patriotism.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Scott Keyes

ThinkProgress filed this report from Iowa City, Iowa. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) barnstormed through Iowa in his first trip as a presidential candidate yesterday, he ran into pushback from senior citizens who feared what a Perry presidency could mean for Social Security.

In his book Fed Up!, Perry minces no words about his view that Social Security is an unconstitutional "Ponzi scheme." Now, as Perry runs for president on a 10th Amendment platform that would include ending Social Security and declaring almost everything unconstitutional, many voters are understandably worried that the program they've been paying into their entire lives could be on the chopping block.

A number of voters gathered yesterday in Iowa City, Iowa to voice their concerns. As Perry's bus rolled into town, senior citizens and others confronted the Texas governor about his views on Social Security and his support for corporate tax giveaways. With chants of "Hey hey, whadya say, stop the corporate giveaway" in the background, one elderly gentleman admonished Perry for his views on Social Security and the Constitution. "You gonna kill Social Security?" protested Dick Greenwood. "Where'd you read your constitution?" Watch it:

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Ben Armbruster

Veterans groups criticized Rick Perry yesterday for saying on Sunday that the U.S. troops don't respect President Obama. One group called Perry's comment a "smear against" American troops' "professionalism." Yet when given a chance to clarify or back down from his comments, Perry yesterday doubled down. "If you polled the military, the active duty and veterans, and said 'would you rather have a president of the United States that never served a day in the military or someone who is a veteran?' They've going to say, I would venture, that they would like to have a veteran," Perry told reporters last night.

from 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates: ABC News Guidebook

The Texas governor wasted no time before taking shots at opponents

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Matthew Yglesias

Rick Perry, it seems, is backing off the death threats but sticking with the substantive critique that the Fed needs to "stop printing the money that's devaluing the dollar." That seems like an opportune moment to present an updated version of my chart of exchange rates over the past 30 years: I note again that there's nothing wrong with the long-term decline of the dollar relative to other currencies. What we're talking about here is a period of time during which such countries as China, India, Russia, etc. made major pro-growth economic reforms. Those reforms have been successful and have eroded the centrality of the United States to the world economic situation. But do any of us regret that China abandoned Maoism? Or think there's an economic reform comparable in impact to abandoning Maoism that the United States could undertake?

from Twitter Debate: GOP Presidential Candidates Face Off by David Helfenbein

Can you support a woman's right to choose and then not support it? Sure. But can you do it while running for president in an extremely polarized atmosphere filled with near-toxic partisanship? You tell me. Read More...

from Republicans Hate Their Presidential Candidates | Mother Jones by Kevin Drum

A friend emails to say he's sick and tired of Rick Perry and wants me to write a post about the first non-Perry item that comes up in my RSS feed. Fine. But who to choose? One potato, two potato, I haven't linked to Modeled Behavior for a while, so let's see what's up there. Sadly, their top post right now is about Rick Perry.But the next post down is from Karl Smith:

I am short. My wife is short. Chances are my son will be short. Here's a question – why?

At this point in human history, height in the Western world is mostly genetically determined. Yet, as far as I can tell the advantages to having tall genes outweigh those to having short.

Even in a preindustrial environment this seems to be true. This is likely why taller people, especially men are more attractive and have higher status.

So, why did genetic shortness persist?

Hmmm. What kind of ill-informed ev psych speculation can I offer up here? Maybe shortness isn't especially maladaptive. Maybe the big, tall cavemen all went chasing after the saber-tooth tigers and got eaten while the short guys ran away to live another day. Or maybe the short guys, being less sexually attractive, had to develop a better line of patter and became more socially adept? Or maybe agility and climbing ability are as important as speed and strength. Perhaps the little guys tended to stay at home and help with the farming instead of going out on hunts, thus providing lots of opportunities for afternoon quickies while Og was away? Or maybe shortness genes were all conserved via women, for whom it was an advantage?

Hell, I don't know. So let's get back to Rick Perry. Authoritative information on his height is surprisingly hard to come by, but in this picture he's pretty close to standing up straight and looks to be about six feet tall or maybe a little under - but in any case clearly a bit shorter than Barack Obama. (Perry is also about six feet wide, but that doesn't matter.) Since it's widely known that the taller candidate usually wins in a presidential contest, this makes Perry a pretty chancy GOP opponent for Obama. Mitt Romney is 6' 2", which makes him a safer alpha male bet for Republicans. And pipsqueak Michele Bachmann is obviously doomed. So I'll stick with Romney as the favorite to win the Republican nomination this year.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Matthew Yglesias

Incidentally, you might be thinking about Rick Perry's complaint that poor people and retirees don't pay enough in taxes and wonder how Texas is doing on that score. Unfortunately, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy data on Texas tax structure (PDF) doesn't let me look at retirees. We can, however, see that among the non-elderly, Governor Perry has done a great job of soaking the poor:
All states are at least somewhat regressive, but some like Massachusetts (PDF) are much less regressive.

from Michele Bachmann for President

The State Column | Staff

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney remains the frontrunner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. A majority of Republican primary polls show Romney in first by at least several percentage points as the primary election nears. However, with Texas Governor Rick Perry expected to enter the race shortly, Romney’s frontrunner status may be in jeopardy.

With the backing of Tea Party supporters, Perry’s announcement may blow the race for the GOP nomination wide open. In a number of July polls, Perry has slowly closed the gap between himself and Romney when Republicans or Republican-leaning voters are surveyed. For examples, Perry grabbed a second place finish in a July 27th Gallup poll of announced and unannounced candidates with 15 percent support, while Romney grabbed a first place finish with 17 percent support. In a July 28th Pew Research Center poll, Perry won second place with 12 percent support, while Romney took first place with 21 percent support.

The diminishing gap between Romney and his competitors is evident again in A Rasmussen Reports survey released on August 1st. In a telephone survey of likely Republican voters, Romney grabbed 22 percent of the Republican vote, while Perry came away with 18 percent and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) brought in 16 percent. The telephone survey had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Follow this link to read the full article

from Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates ...

Herman Cain and Rick Perry have the highest Positive Intensity Scores among Republicans who know them. Rudy Giuliani, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney trail slightly behind.

from Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates ...

Rick Perry is the favorite of southern Republicans for the party's 2012 presidential nomination, with 22% choosing him to 13% for Sarah Palin in that region. Mitt Romney has a similar lead in the West, 24% to 12%, over Michele Bachmann. The East and Midwest are more competitive.

from Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates ...

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport reveals that announced candidate Mitt Romney and potential candidate Rick Perry are Republicans' top choices for their party's 2012 presidential nominee, with Sarah Palin a close third.

from Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates ...

Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney continue to generate both high recognition and favorable reactions among Republicans nationwide relative to other potential GOP candidates for 2012. While less well known, Rick Perry and Herman Cain are highly popular with those who know them.

from 2012 Presidential Election - News, Analysis, Candidates, Polls ... by Kenneth P. Vogel

The super PAC Jobs for Iowa promotes the Texas governor for president.

from 2012 Presidential Election - News, Analysis, Candidates, Polls ... by Ben Smith

from 2012 Presidential Election - News, Analysis, Candidates, Polls ... by James Hohmann

Ron Paul's campaign is going directly at Mitt Romney with a letter to New Hampshire voters from his son, Rand Paul.

from 2012 Presidential Candidates | 2012 Election News & Opinion by ThePresidentialCandidates.US

A new GOP national poll from Quinnipiac have good news for Michele Bachmann in her quest for the GOP nomination.

GOP National Poll

Mitt Romney 25% (even from last month.)
Michele Bachmann 14% (+8!)
Sarah Palin 12% (not yet officially running.)
Rick Perry 10% (not yet officially running.)
Herman Cain 6% (-3)
Ron Paul 5% (-3)
Newt Gingrich 5% (-3)
Tim Pawlenty 3% (-2)
Rick Santorum 1% (-3)
Jon Huntsman 1% (even)

Cain, Pawlenty, Huntsman, Paul, Gingrich, Pawlenty

These candidates are clearly going nowhere fast. Any far right wing Tea Party momentum Cain had has been taken over by Bachmann. Pawlenty and Huntsman seem to be making no impression on GOP voters. Gingrich’s campaign is the very definition of the walking dead. Rick Santorum is clearly not the first choice for the far right voters he would theoretically appeal to.

I do not believe any of these candidates will play an important role in the GOP primaries next year.

People often bring up John McCain’s 2008 campaign as evidence that we shouldn’t be writing off Pawlenty yet but in July of 2007 McCain had 16% GOP supportaccording to Gallup. Pawlenty is at 3%.

Rick Perry & Sarah Palin

These two would change the dynamics of the race if they get in. It seems to me that their entry would actually benefit Mitt Romney as it would split the anti-Romney vote among more candidates rather than allowing Bachmann to build more momentum as the best right wing alternative to Romney.

from 2012 Presidential Candidates | 2012 Election News & Opinion by ThePresidentialCandidates.US

In a strong sign of continued momentum Michele Bachmann leads PPP national Republican polling for the first time with 21% of support (vs. 20% for Mitt Romney.)

The poll also included Texas Governor Rick Perry who appears likely to enter the campaign (the extreme right wing Perry is polling behind President ObamA even in Texas) but did not include Sarah Palin who has still made no serious moves towards running for President.

PPP National GOP Poll

Bachmann 21%
Romney 20%
Perry 12%
Herman Cain 11%
Ron Paul 9%
Newt Gingrich 7%
Tim Pawlenty 5%
Jon Huntsman 3%

Bachmann vs. Romney

PPP also tested how Bachmann and Romney would stack up if they were the only two candidates left in the race (these nomination processes often boil down to just two major candidates left at the end.) In this hypothetical Bachmann leads Romney 44% to 41%.

Tim Pawlenty

Pawlenty’s campaign appears to be going nowhere fast. His poll numbers have dropped from 13% to 9% to 5% over the last three PPP national polls.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Joe Romm

On Friday, I wrote that Perry is Obama's dream opponent (see "Rick Perry Thinks America Desires Another Rigid, Anti-Science, Idealogue Governor From The Great State of Big Oil"). Perry makes it easy for even a lame communications team like Obama's to make this campaign about the past versus the future.

The only thing weaker than Obama's brand is the GOP's, and especially anyone with links to the Tea Party or Bush. Why do you think Jeb Bush isn't running??

Perry is a two-fer. He is hard-core Tea Party - and another pro-pollution, extremist Texas governor. Remember, even Bush shrewdly decided to disguise some of that in the 2000 "compassionate conservative" campaign, which is the only reason he eked out a loss win.

The WashPost asks "Is Rick Perry too George W. Bush-y?" The Atlantic asks, "Is America Ready for 'George W. Bush on Steroids?' " TP's Faiz Shakir notes that Karl Rove just said that distancing himself from the still wildly unpopular Bush "Is Not Smart Politics Strategically Or Tactically" for Perry. [No wonder they call Rove Bush's brain.] Artist Mario Piperni's rendering of Bush and Perry photos.

But how precisely do you distance yourself from Bush when you served as his lieutenant Governor? In theory you do it with a well-crafted communications strategy. But it turns out so far that Perry is dreadful at messaging. He's an undisciplined blurter, a guy who "shoots from the lip," somebody who just says whatever nonsense comes into his head. The classic example of that is Newt Gingrich.

You'd think that with Perry building up to this announcement for months he would have had a carefully crafted message and specific talking points he would repeat again and again. But instead, in a widely criticized move, he questioned Obama's patriotism and specifically his "love" of this country - when Perry himself has repeatedly raised the possibility of Texas seceding!

Worse, Perry threatened violence against the mild-mannered Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion." Treason is a capital crime. Averting the economic harship of a double dip recession (caused first by Bush policies and then by Tea Party extremism) is the job of the Fed. Tony Fratto, Bush's former Deputy Press Secretary, tweeted that Perry's remarks were "inappropriate and unpresidential."

On Monday, Perry suggested a policy that would harm the health of our children and endanger hard-won victories that keep the air and water clean. As TP Green reported, Perry called for "A Moratorium On All Regulations":

We're calling today on the president of the United States to put a moratorium on regulations across this country, because his regulations, his EPA regulations are killing jobs all across America.

"We're sending out a request today asking President Obama to put a moratorium on all regulations," Perry said on WHO radio in Iowa, recorded live by ThinkProgress.

Under such a moratorium, the Food and Drug Administration would stop approving new drugs and preventing human experimentation; the USDA would stop checking for food safety; the EPA would stop monitoring for poisons in drinking water; the Library of Congress would stop loaning materials to blind people; the NTSB would stop investigating airplane accidents; HHS would end Medicare payments; no more patents, copyrights, or trademarks would be issued; DHS would stop protecting chemical facilities from terrorist attacks; the Treasury would stop printing currency; financial sanctions on hostile nations like North Korea and Iran would end; and the Federal Reserve System would shut down.

Perry's "moratorium on regulations" would mean a literal end to the rules of law in the United States. At least it would also mean that all of President George W. Bush's midnight regulations favoring polluters and industry abuses would also be lifted.

The defining characteristic of Tea Party extremists like Perry is their anarchical disdain for government. As Climate Progress has noted many times, however, failure to act on climate change ensures the biggest government possible this century.

Salon has a piece on "Rick Perry's dangerously overheated campaign rollout." Unless Perry gets some message discipline to pass himself off as a more rational, temperate candidate, he may end up as parched as Texas.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Igor Volsky

Rick Perry doesn't have much of a health care record to run on. A quarter of Texans are uninsured, the highest in the country, Texas has the narrowest Medicaid eligibility standards, and spends the least of any state on mental health and the second to least on health care for the poor. Perry's sole accomplishment seems to be the 2003 overhaul of the state's malpractice system, which the newly-minted candidate promoted during a stop in New Hampshire on Sunday:

The two top issues in the election, he told voters, are jobs and debt, which Romney, too, hammers on the campaign trail. But while Romney tells voters repeatedly how much he knows about the economy from working 25 years in the private sector (and spends little time talking about his record as governor of Massachusetts), Perry weaved together his vision for the nation's economy by tying it to his accomplishments in Texas.

"We've had the most sweeping tort reform in the nation," he said, asserting that as a result of the law passed in 2003, there are 20,000 more physicians in Texas. He spoke of cutting taxes and sparking the best job growth of any state in the nation.

And instead of blasting President Obama in the ways his competitors have, Perry chose his words carefully, explaining that he's not angry but indignant about the federal government.

It's hard to know if malpractice is to credit for the additional physicians, but it's certainly not responsible for lowering the state's health care costs and that serves as an uncomfortable case study for how the GOP's favorite reform prescription - tort reform! - falls short of expectations.

When Texas capped non economic medical malpractice damages to $250,000 in 2003, most conservatives argued that the reform would free doctors from having to prescribe unnecessary treatment to avoid lawsuits. It didn't work out that way. According to the Dartmouth research on disparities in health care spending, many Texan doctors are still prescribing aggressive treatments that don't improve outcomes. In fact, as you can see from the chart below, Texas' Medicare spending "seems to have gone up faster than the nation's since 2003":

The truth of the matter is, despite conservative claims to the contrary, malpractice costs make up only a very small percentage of health care spending. And most health experts believe that while fear of lawsuits may certainly be motivating doctors to practice defensive medicine (over prescribe unnecessary treatments and procedures) the nation's fee-for-service reimbursement system bares more of the blame. Texas' experience seems to validate that theory.

from Five GOP Presidential Candidates by Pat Garofalo

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has made it quite clear that he believes Social Security is an unconstitutional "Ponzi scheme." In his book Fed Up!, Perry writes that Social Security is "by far the best example" of a program "violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles." Today, at the Iowa State Fair, Perry responded to a question from Politico's Ben Smith by saying that he thinks one of the ways to deal with his vehement objections to Social Security is to simply send the program to the states and let them figure out what to do with it:

I'm for having a conversation with the country about how we find some solutions to have programs that are going to be sustainable. And I think having the states doing it is one of the ways. I'm not saying it's the only way.

Watch it:

Perry has said before that he wants to give states the option of allowing workers to opt out of Social Security. "So the states will let people opt out of Social Security?" asked CNN's Eliot Spitzer. "They should," Perry replied. But as ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser has pointed out, making Social Security a state program is simply economically impossible:

A workable plan to allow states to opt out of Social Security would require draconian provisions, such as a mandate that everyone must retire in the same state that they worked and paid taxes in. Otherwise, workers who are too young to receive Social Security benefits would move to an opt-out state to avoid paying Social Security taxes - and then promptly move to a state with Social Security benefits the moment they became eligible.Eventually, the entire system would collapse under the weight of too many Social Security beneficiaries who had not paid into the system.

Of course, having Social Security collapse in spectacular fashion may be just the outcome that Perry has in mind.

from Climate & Energy | Grist by Brad Johnson.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has watched firsthand the ravages of a warming climate, first as his state's agriculture commissioner (killer droughts and record heat in 1996 and 1998) then as governor (droughts in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, with Texas' hottest July in history). Perry declared the 1996 drought "the worst natural disaster in Texas in the 20th century." He issued an official proclamation to pray for rain this year (it didn't work). However, he argues that climate science is "all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight" in his book, Fed Up!:

For example, they have seen the headlines in the past year about doctored data related to global warming. They know we have been experiencing a cooling trend, that the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists, and that draconian policies with dire economic effects based on so-called science may not stand the test of time. Quite frankly, when science gets hijacked by the political Left, we should all be concerned ...

And it's all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight. Al Gore is a prophet all right, a false prophet of a secular carbon cult, and now even moderate Democrats aren't buying it.

In an email interview with ThinkProgress, Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University responds that Perry is wrong:

There are dozens of credible atmospheric scientists in Texas at institutions like Rice, UT, and Texas A&M, and I can confidently say that none agree with Gov. Perry's views on the science of climate change. This is a particularly unfortunate situation given the hellish drought that Texas is now experiencing, and which climate change is almost certainly making worse.

"Contrary to what one might read in newspapers, the science of climate change is strong," Dessler and five other climate scientists from Texas schools wrote in the Houston Chronicle in 2010. "It is virtually certain that the climate is warming," the entire faculty of the Texas A&M department of atmospheric sciences affirm. "It is very likely that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming," and future climate change from human-made greenhouse emissions brings a "risk of serious adverse impacts on our environment and society." The members of the Jackson School of Geosciences program in Climate Systems Science at the University of Texas at Austin also agree with "the scientific assessment presented in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Below is a partial list of the Texas climate scientists who disagree with Perry's denial of climate science, including the Texas State climatologist and the directors of the Environmental Science Institute, the Texas Center for Climate Studies, the Center for the Study of Environment and Society, the Climate Science Center, the Cooperative Institute for Applied Meteorological Studies, the Institute for Geophysics, and the Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment:

Jay Banner, professor, Jackson School of Geosciences and director, Environmental Science Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
Donald Blankenship, senior research scientist, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Kenneth Bowman, atmospheric sciences department head, Texas A&M University
Sarah D. Brooks, associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Ginny Catania, assistant professor, Earth Surface and Hydrologic Processes, The University of Texas at Austin
Ping Chang, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography, Texas A&M University, and director, Texas Center for Climate Studies
Don Collins, professor and director of environmental programs in geosciences, Texas A&M University
Don Conlee, instructional associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Kerry Cook, professor, Climate Systems Science, The University of Texas at Austin
Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Robert Dickinson, professor of geological sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
André Droxler, professor of earth science and director of the Center for the Study of Environment and Society, Rice University
Robert Duce, distinguished professor emeritus, Departments of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University
Craig Epifanio, associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Rong Fu, professor, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Charles Jackson, research scientist, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Rob Korty, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Katharine Hayhoe, associate professor and director, Climate Science Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Mark Lemmon, professor of planetary sciences, Texas A&M University
Shaima L. Nasiri, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
John Nielsen-Gammon, professor, Texas A&M University and Texas State Climatologist
Gerald North, distinguished professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography, Texas A&M University
Richard Orville, professor and director, Cooperative Institute for Applied Meteorological Studies, Texas A&M University
R. Lee Panetta, professor of atmospheric sciences and mathematics, Texas A&M University
Jud Partin, postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Terry Quinn, research professor and director, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
R. Saravanan, professor, Texas A&M University
Gunnar W. Schade, assistant professor, Texas A&M University
Courtney Schumacher, associate professor, Texas A&M University
Russ Schumacher, assistant professor, Texas A&M University
Istvan Szunyogh, associate professor, Texas A&M University
Fred Taylor, senior research scientist, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Michael Tobis, research science associate, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Ned Vizy, research science associate, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Thomas Wilheit, research professor, Texas A&M University
Ping Yang, professor and holder of the David Bullock Harris Chair in Geosciences, Texas A&M University
Renyi Zhang, professor, director of the Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, and holder of the Harold J. Haynes Chair in Geosciences, Texas A&M University

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