Ribbon Clerks/Little Cowboys And Your Republican Party

I hired the Doors to play at my college and the bonus was that I met Danny Fields the night of the show. I had never met anyone in the music industry before but after becoming friends with Danny, I intuited what my career path would be. Many years later Danny was managing the Ramones and I was a punk rock dj and music journalist in San Francisco-- and one of the world's most devoted Ramones fans. It was their first trip to San Francisco and Danny asked me to help him find an environment for a photo that had a vaguely threatening feel. I brought him and Dee Dee to the Eagle on Folsom Street. Danny couldn't stop laughing. There were all these über-macho dudes sauntering around... darkly. In black leather outfits. Danny didn't find it vaguely threatening. "This is a roomful of ribbon clerks."

He was right. They were playing dress-up. That was 14 years ago. You know who's playing dress-up now? Yeah... that guy with the pink handgun up top (and this is the soundtrack that goes with the picture). He wants to come across as the big, hard talking, macho guy in the race-- a contrast to the awkward, weird, mealy mouthed corporate elite guy-- but he's as macho as the ribbon clerks at the Eagle with the red, yellow and blue hankies and the black leather assless chaps. And now he can't go back on that Ponzi Scheme/monstrous lie third-rail thing. That kind of crap-- and a bizarre, gratuitous anti-Galileo screed-- can win a Republican primary-- I think-- but it's death in a general election. Romney made mincemeat out of him and macho macho man Perry was whining he felt like a piñata.

According to Anzalone Liszt Research, Republican primary voters are mad about Slick Rick-- no, no, not angry he's a fraud and a doofus... mad like in love with, drooling over, got a woody for. They even love him without knowing much about him at all... although the more of his hype they hear, the harder the collective woody gets.

Recent public polls among Republican primary voters since Perry officially entered the race show him in a comfortable lead over the remainder of the field, despite not being as well-known as some of the other GOP candidates. With three-quarters (74%) of Republican voters able to identify him according to Gallup, Perry's name ID lags behind Mitt Romney's (88%), Newt Gingrich's (86%), Michele Bachmann's (84%), and Ron Paul's (79%). As Republican voters are becoming more familiar with Perry (his name ID is up from 54% at the end of July), his performance in the polls is climbing. Gallup also calculates a positive intensity score, based on the favorability ratings and intensity among voters familiar with each candidate-- Perry's positive intensity score leads all other Republican candidates', with 29% of voters "strongly favorable" towards him, while only 15% of voters familiar with Romney are "strongly favorable" towards the Massachusetts Governor.
  
In just three weeks, Perry has pulled from trailing Romney by 8 points when his candidacy was a merely speculated, to an 8-point lead over Romney in a Fox News poll out last week (26% Perry-- 18% Romney, with Sarah Palin trailing at 8%, Paul at 7%, and Bachmann at 4%). Quinnipiac polling finds the same trend, and Perry leads in their most recent GOP polling, 24% Perry- 18% Romney, with Palin receiving 11%, and Bachmann at 10%.

...Perry has also pulled ahead of his competitors in the majority of state GOP primary polls. Just weeks after Bachmann's Ames Iowa Straw Poll win, a poll among likely Iowa caucus-goers finds that Perry now leads Bachmann 23% - 20%, with Romney in third place at 16%. Paul (9%), Herman Cain (8%), and Jon Huntsman (2%) do not break double-digits. Perry also leads in South Carolina (31% - 20% Romney - 14% Bachmann) and Nevada (29% - 20% Romney - 7% Cain).
 
In California, Romney and Perry are tied with 22% of the Republican primary vote, however among California's Tea Party supporters, Perry leads him 33% - 23%. Among California Tea Partiers, Congresswoman Bachmann only receives 11%, putting her one point ahead of Ron Paul (10%), both candidates who have actively courted the Tea Party vote.
 
Romney still holds a sizable lead over Perry in New Hampshire, with his 36% doubling Perry's 18%, which puts him closer with 3rd and 4th placing candidates Paul (14%) and Bachmann (10%). Romney also leads in Florida, 28% - 21% over Perry.

...Much of the media coverage of late has honed in on the how much coverage the Republican candidates are receiving. Rick Perry is a recent darling, but many also believe that Jon Huntsman is earning a disproportionate amount of media attention given his lackluster performance in the polls (he does not garner more than 2% in any poll over the last month)... A search and tally of Google News finds that Rick Perry has dominated the news over the last month, with 23,800 mentions in the last month alone (remarkably, his total mentions in 2011 is just 5,000 more than this - 28,900). Top tier candidates Michele Bachmann receives the next most mentions over the last month, 13,000, only 200 more than Mitt Romney during the same time (12,800).

And what does all the hype say? The leather jock strap looks sooooo butch and the deranged Republican nihilists are eating it up. He's such a man! And didn't he get the biggest applause of the debate when he bragged about frying so many people WITH ALACRITY? What a man-- perfect for today's GOP!

Mr. Perry defended his record of overseeing the execution of 234 inmates in Texas. When asked by one of the moderators, Brian Williams of NBC News, if he had lost sleep over the decision, Mr. Perry replied, “No sir, I’ve never struggled with that at all.”

The invited audience, made up of supporters of the candidates and patrons of the library, broke out into applause when Mr. Williams noted again that 234 people had been executed.

This morning, one of the Blue America House candidates sent me this picture of Perry eating a corndog. Can you guess which one?


Never mind the other three, keep your attention focused on Rick Perry in this clip: