Promises and Ponzi Schemes

I'm taking a break from my break long enough to comment on the latest news . . ..

President Obama's speech last night laid out $447 billion in tax credits for businesses to hire new workers, spend more money on highways and bridges, and extend payroll tax cuts with the cost for the package to be paid for with future spending cuts to keep the debt and budget deficit down. If the speech was an effort to show that he is committed to solving the nation's employment crisis, Obama succeeded. If it was an effort to get something done, of course the Republicans will never go along with it. If the bipartisan proposals in the speech were meant to make the Republicans pay a political price for inaction, well, that might work. But then the Dow lost 303 points, in part because of more fears about European debt, but also because no one expects any of these proposals to pass, indicating that none of Obama's initiatives may matter much.

Eighteen years ago, when Bill Clinton first entered the White House, I would have heard a speech with economic proposals exactly like Obama's (I probably did) and reacted by saying "Sounds good!" After hearing excerpts of the speech after the fact (I didn't get to watch it live) I didn't want to get up and cheer. In fact, I didn't want to do anything. I simply went about my normal life.

Though, tonight, Chris Matthews declared the speech passionate and pointed, and he predicted Obama may have turned a corner. He may be right. But he may also be right when he suggested that Rick Perry could easily beat Obama in November 2012, if the economy remains bad enough.

Speaking of which, the big news to come out of the Republican presidential debate was Perry's insistence that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, which encouraged right-wing commentators to parrot their agreement without explaining what a Ponzi scheme is. A Ponzi scheme, for the record, is, according to Wikipedia, "a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors." By the way, Social Security is in surplus right now and will be for several years, and when there are fewer workers paying into the system, a few minor adjustments can be made to keep it going well into its second century.

Perry Pops Off

No one can accuse Rick Perry of being a dark horse for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination after his first week on the campaign trail. In just one short week, he declared that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's idea of printing more money would be an act of treason, he insisted that global warming is made up by scientists, and he professed to a little boy in New Hampshire that Texas schools teaches creation science along with evolution to let students decide for themselves which is the right theory, and he trusts the lad will make the right choice. I guess we all know what that would be.

Oh yeah, creation science is not taught in Texas schools.

Perry might help the Republicans win the 2012 election, but not by winning the nomination. He could slow down Michele Bachmann's momentum and make Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman suddenly seem like reasonable choices.

(Breaking news: It looks like the Libyan Civil War is almost over, with Qaddafi on the verge of losing power. I'll have more to say about that later.)

Fade Out, Fade In

Tim Pawlenty is out and Rick Perry is in. Pawlenty ended his presidential candidacy based on his poor showing in the Iowa straw poll that his fellow Minnesota Twin Michele Bachmann shockingly won on Saturday. Which begs the obvious question: Why do they have have a Republican caucus in Iowa, if they're going to have a straw poll? Another question? Why do they have a straw poll?

This is no way to pick a President. I'm still trying to imagine the Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament stepping down because he lost a straw poll at the Buffalo Days Exhibition, the provincial fair of Saskatchewan.

No sooner had Bachmann finished scarfing down a corn dog to celebrate her victory in the straw poll at the Iowa state fair when Texas governor Rick Perry entered the 2012 Republican presidential campaign. Perry hopes his record at creating jobs will make him a threat against President Obama, even though most of the jobs created in Texas are minimum-wage jobs, the few good jobs created are connected to either the oil industry boom or military contracts, and the slashing of many public services to balance the state budget has left many Texas residents at the end of their ropes.

But Obama - whose approval rating now stands at 39 percent in a Gallup poll despite another poll that shows Democrats favored to win back the House in 2012 - would probably lose to Perry, even though the Texas governor believes in the power of prayer to solve our nation's problems (as evidenced by the prayer jamboree he held in Houston in early August) and misinterpreted a law that allows Texas to divide itself into six states; he thinks it allows the state to regain its independence.

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann thinks John Quincy Adams was a Founding Father who ended slavery. Rick Santorum equates homosexuality with bestiality. Herman Cain refuses to appoint Muslims to any office if elected President. Mitt Romney thinks corporations are people. It looks increasingly likely that President Obama will lose handily to a Republican presidential candidate who flunked recess in school. Most of them apparently did.

Texas Tea Party

In Texas, noted secessionist Rick Perry won the Republican nomination to run for an unprecedented third term as governor, handily defeating U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry shrewdly ran by capitalizing on the anti-incumbent anger of the Tea Party movement, even though he himself is an incumbent. Mrs. Hutchison gave him the opportunity. Perry simply ran against Washington and made Mrs. Hutchison's seventeen years as a U.S. senator an issue. The man the late Molly Ivins called the "Lite Gov" of Texas (a pun on on the fact that he had been lieutenant governor, or "Lt. Gov.") tied Mrs. Hutchison to several unpopular pieces of legislation, like the bank bailouts, and ran as much for state and local control as against federal control. Mrs. Hutchison, for her part, never had a chance; she spent too much time defending her votes in the Senate and too little time articulating a reason for her candidacy or explaining her agenda.

And she's a former television news reporter. So much for her communication skills.

Oh, yeah, the Democratic Texas gubernatorial nomination, as if it mattered. That prize went to Bill White, a former Houston mayor who quickly moved to depict Perry, being such an entrenched incumbent, as part of the problem, not the solution. White has a case, as Perry has been governor of Texas for a decade, and he may be the best chance Texas Democrats have had to elect one of their own to statewide office in a long time. There are two big problems for White, though. First, even though he is neither an incumbent governor nor a current office holder, White will have trouble making Perry the issue because Perry ran in the Republican primary against Washington, not Austin. Secondly, the Tea Party movement almost always endorses Republicans, and Texas Tea Party voters in the Ron Paul mold aren't likely to vote for any Democrat. Thirdly, White is suggesting that he can build a successful coalition of Democrats and anti-Perry Republicans.

Bill, you need a majority.

So that's the race in the fall, Rick Perry versus Bill White for governor or Texas. Perry-White. An election campaign the Daily Planet would cover? This race promises to be so toxic, even Clark Kent, despite his superhuman abilities, would avoid it like kryptonite.