5. Rick Perry rode into the campaign on a white horse; the conservative savior the GOP base pined for.
The TRUE Anti-Romney. Someone to finally call Mitt out for his inconsistency. This is what he came up with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs6a7Etqjec

Wow. That couldn’t have gone worse. He would have been better off if he just wet himself and smiled.

4. In a desperate move to pander to social conservative evangelicals, the Perry campaign released this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA

It quickly became the most viral video of the campaign…but not in a good way. It’s one of the most disliked videos ever on Youtube with almost 750,000 dislikes.

3. Conservatives love bashing on activist judges and Perry loves to appease. In a rant about activist judges, Perry forgets the name of the activist judge of the Supreme Court that he’s so angry about. He comes up with “Montemayor”, which may have been forgivable if he didn’t also miss the number of justices on the Supreme Court.

2. After stumbling badly in several debates, it’s clear that the pressure of the campaign
had gotten to Perry at this point. He delivers this bizarre speech to a crowd in
New Hampshire. Up to this point, you’d only seen the Stern and Serious Perry but here he is strangely effemenate, awkwardly jovial, and comes across as a drunk frat boy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M4gz97Y9W8

Thumbs up right back at ya, Rick.

1. I forget the last one. Oops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uvmKnFY4uk

Rick Perry doubled down on his criticisms of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling him “treasonous”. Newt Gingrich said he is “the most inflationary, dangerous and power-centered” Fed chairman in history. Almost all GOP Primary contenders have said they would not appoint Bernanke to another term.  

The Fed has a dual mandate: keep prices stable and maximize employment. The strange thing here is the GOP candidates have solely focused on sound money. They even suggested tonight that the Fed should only care about inflation (note that employment was not mentioned during this conversation, just that the Fed should end the dual mandate). Strange times when inflation is <3% and unemployment is >9% and Very Serious candidates are calling for an end to the dual mandate.

Just remember this graph when you hear a serious candidate beating their strong money drum:

Inflation is low.

Imagine how strange it must be for Ben Bernanke (Doctorate Econ from MIT, Tenured Professor at Princeton, a Republican originally appointed by a Republican) to be criticized by Rick Perry, who received a D in Principles of Economics.

Today, Mike Huckabee joined Michelle Bachmann and Jason Chaffetz among others asking Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to resign. I haven’t been able to decipher exactly what Secretary Geithner has actually done wrong. Most people wouldn’t know who he is if the debt ceiling was raised before the US Treasury got dangerously to default.

Huckabee’s suggestion was a little different; He has a replacement in mind: Donald Trump. Huckabee’s suggestion is primarily based upon “mixing it up.” I guess the Huckster needs to stay in the news to maintain a market for his poorly animated revisionist history cartoons. A tip Mike: if you’re going to rewrite history, at least consider something that everyone doesn’t vividly remember.

I’ve always maintained that a balanced budget amendment has intuitive appeal. It makes sense to someone running a household that the government should manage their checkbook the same way they do.

“Would you favor or oppose a balanced budget amendment — that is, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would require the federal government to produce a balanced budget?”

Favor:72%

Oppose:20%

Unsure:9%

 They like the IDEA of a balanced budget amendment but not necessarily a balanced budget amendment  in practice. Social Security, Medicare, and defense make up an overwhelming portion of government spending. Everything else is peanuts.

“Would you favor or oppose a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution if it meant major spending cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security?”

Favor:31%

Oppose:63%

Unsure:6%

“Would you favor or oppose a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution if it meant major tax increases for every American?”

Favor:34%

Oppose:62%

Unsure:4%

We love our social programs but we think they should cost nothing. Polls that propose cuts to defense show more favorability but still a mixed bag.

Results taken from a fox news poll 6/26-6/28. Margin of error 3%.

Even after Obama admitted voting against the debt ceiling in 2006 was a silly political move, it’s still being raised as equivalent to the actions of the current GOP congress. Symbolically voting ‘no’ against a bill that you know will pass is not the same as holding the economy hostage in an attempt get a constitutional amendment are not, in fact, the same. Equivalence would be Senator Obama filibustering the debt ceiling vote unless it had universal health care attached.

LEE: Well, look, what I see developing is a growing consensus behind the cut, cap, balance approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/2011/07/15/sen-mike-lee-his-debt-plan#ixzz1SIRyWmOv

“Do you think any agreement to raise the national debt ceiling should include only spending cuts, or should it also include an increase in taxes for the wealthy and corporations?”

In a CBS interview, President Obama said he couldn’t guarantee Social Security checks would be mailed out on August 3rd. This outraged Mike Lee, the Utah senator who replaced Bob Bennett because Bennett wasn’t conservative enough ( a concept that is still hard to digest). So, just for a second, we’ll pretend that if eliminating Social Security outright was on the table… Movement conservative Mike Lee wouldn’t break his ankles running to cast that vote.

Let’s suspend disbelief here for a moment and get ready to manufacture some outrage (Mike Lee’s response to Obama):

President Obama is now threatening to cut Social Security payments if the debt ceiling is not increased.  Under the law, the President and Secretary Geithner have great discretion to direct funds in the case the debt ceiling is not raised, so Americans should take his threat seriously.  Currently the United States borrows roughly $125 billion every month.  Instead of cutting Social Security for America’s seniors and disabled men, women, and children, as the President proposes, I have identified almost 20 line items in the budget he could trim instead.

Look , Mike Lee solved the problem! Just welch out on these other 20 programs. It’s easy! Let’s just stop paying postal workers. I’ll be happy to tell my mailman that while he isn’t getting paid next month, Social Security checks are still being sent out. He’ll be happy to know that even though he can’t pay his mortgage, somebody else is getting paid on time. I’m guessing the skipping defense vendor payments could cost some jobs too. Well played Mike. 

The position of the administration isn’t withholding SS checks as a top priority but that making these kind of choices at all represents a moral hazard. It’s indecent to ask them to choose which programs to chisel.

And what kind of time does not sending those payments for those 20 programs out buy until the next round of SS checks are due? Maybe instead of creating poorly-designed-Sophie’s-choice-contingency plans, Senator Lee should rethink his hold-the-economy-hostage-to-appease-Grover-Norquist stance.