Against Perrymania

Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a freelance journalist and blogger. He considers Bob Dylan and Walter Sobchak to be the two great Jewish thinkers of our time; he thinks Kafka was half-right when he said there was hope, "but not for us"; and he can be reached through the twitter via @eliasisquith or via email. The opinions he expresses on the blog and throughout the interwebs are exclusively his own.

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6 Responses

  1. Trumwill says:

    A number of your observations are spot-on, but you (in the collective second person) should be really, really careful before concluding the un-electability of someone that you don’t like. Just as the people who love Perry (if such people exist) are not really in a position to see it objectively.

    In addition to not paying as much attention as you or I do, it’s far from a foregone conclusion that Joe America going to see Rick Perry as you, or any of his critics (or fans) do.

    The only real answer to Perry’s chances are “It depends.”

    I don’t think he’s Reagan, but he doesn’t have to be. I don’t think he’s Fred Thompson, either. Thompson was undone by his own laziness as much as anything, not because people didn’t like what they saw. If Perry goes down, it’s more likely to be because people don’t like what they see.

    But while we’re throwing predictions out there, I have a relatively easy two-part one. A Perry candidacy could be the worst thing to happen to Romney’s campaign, if he costs Romney the nomination, or he could be the best, by making Romney look like “the adult in the room” by comparison. I know for my part that he has me thinking of a shift from “uncommitted” to possibly “Mitt Romney supporter.”

    But I’m not Joe America, either.Report

  2. MFarmer says:

    MSNBC would love to see Perry run and get the nomination. Neither Romney nor Perry are what the Republican Party needs. But they will be cast by the media as the frontrunners. The media will hardly mention Ron Paul, even if he wins straw polls and consistently stays relevant in the polls. The Republican establishment will also back one of these, and it will be disastrous, unless the nation is just so fed up with Obama that they’ll vote for anyone who isn’t Obama. But, it’s not going to matter, really, unless we change the system. Plugging in a Republican in place of a Democrat won’t change the system — it never has. The real question going toward 2012 should be how many new representatives should be elected in order to make radical changes to the system, with two main goals in mind — limited government and a free market.Report

    • Jesse Ewiak in reply to MFarmer says:

      Jebus. Ron Paul will never win a competitive primary because he doesn’t even have the support of a large pularity (sp?) of any state’s Republican primary voters, let alone the majority of any state’s voters.

      Americans are not for small government. Americans are for big government for themselves and their families and small government for people they don’t like.Report

      • Paul in reply to Jesse Ewiak says:

        Jesse, you may have a spelling problem, but you have the American voters down pat!Report

      • Murali in reply to Jesse Ewiak says:

        Americans are for big government for themselves and their families and small government for people they don’t like.

        Which if you think about it would justify the conclusion that there is necessarily a massive gulf between what the american people want and what is owed to them as a matter of justice.

        Once you understand this, you will start thinking about how to bypass american voters…Report

        • MFarmer in reply to Murali says:

          “Once you understand this, you will start thinking about how to bypass american voters…”

          Yes, because, afterall, they can’t be trusted to promote the general welfare in a fair and balanced way. They are all focused on their family and their tribe. Understanding this, it’s necessary to enforce social justice, and only benevolent technocrats who transcend selfish motives can accomplish this. Long live the State!Report