Is A Bungling Twerp Like Rick Perry Going To Stumble Into Another Civil War?

If Texas were a sane and rational state, conservative Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison -- or even conservative Democrat Kinky Friedman-- would have locked up the gubernatorial race yesterday. But it isn't-- and instead of being forced to apologize and back down, there are plenty of fringe nutcases from Waco to Amarillo who were toasting Gov. Rick Perry last night because he asserted Texas' delusional "right" to secede (again). So, instead Chuck Norris might wind up winning... the Texas presidency.

Perry-- stuck in what looks like the losing end of a race with Hutchison to win the gubernatorial election-- spent the morning with crazed hate talk radio freak Laura Ingraham, which, apparently got him so worked up that he ran off to a tea party, saw some signs held up by a gaggle of Ron Paul fanatics urging secession-- and went right for it.

There’s a lot of different scenarios. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

Texas already tried that once (in 1861); it was called the Civil War and Texas and the other traitors lost. A few years after the war the Supreme Court ruled, in a case called Texas v White, that no state, not even Texas, has the right to secede, unless the other states agree. (Personally I'd vote yes.) Texas does have the right to break up into 5 states... which would give it 10 Senate seats, except there would no longer be an "it" there, just 5 medium-sized states, presumably a couple of sane ones and three modeled on hell.

Perry spoke at the sparsely-attended Austin teabaggery working up the lunatic fringe crowd into a frenzy of state's rights psychobabble. Proudly admitting he's a right-wing extremist, Perry turned on the demagoguery full blast: "We will not stand our pockets being picked, our children's future being mortgaged, our rights being taken away..."

The Dallas tea party/hate fest was a real doozy, as thousands of people angry about everything they've been hearing spewed from Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly came bubbling to the surface.

Protesters waved yellow “don’t tread on me” flags and a variety of colorful signs alternately decrying taxes, panning a federal economic stimulus package, chiding President Barack Obama as a socialist/communist and announcing Christ has risen.

When Rick Perry was elected governor of Texas in 2006, he managed to garner 1,714,618 votes (39%). After the disgraceful job he's done since then, he's probably a lot less popular now than when he squeaked by. And by the way, if anyone is counting, 3,528,633 Texans voted for President Obama in November (just over 44%). Also worth noting, the most recent Public Policy Poll of Texas, February 26, shows that President Obama has a 45% approval rating. Not that great. But Governor Perry's is only 41%-- with a startlingly high 48% holding him in an unfavorable light. Most Texans don't want to secede anymore than most Californians or Oregonians or Floridians or Mainers. (75% of Texans want to stay in the U.S.A.; the rest are the Limbaugh/GOP base.) Limbaugh, of course, petted Perry on the head. And so did Tom DeLay.

I hope Attorney General Holder is studying up on sedition law. And Texas is hardly the only place that breeds kooks and nuts (and I'm not just talking about Glenn Beck here):