Can't Even Call The Horse Race

So we have the analysis in on the GOP debate. (Of course I didn't watch it.)

You have a bunch of Serious People say that Romney clearly won the debate, because Perry said some crazy stuff.  He said that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme.  He glorified in executing a bunch of people.  He said some confusing crap about Galileo.

Jon Chait and others take a less analytical view.  I think they're right.  Yes, Perry said stuff that will cripple him in the general election if he's the nominee.  But none of this makes it less likely that he will actually be the nominee.

People think that Bachmann's campaign sank because she said some crazy crap.  That is simply untrue.  In fact, she rose to be Romney's main challenger because she said some crazy crap.

The GOP electorate is, in fact, crazy.  Witness the applause when Brian Williams pointed out that Texas executes a ton more people than anyone else.  Someone else wrote that the basic idea of conservatism today is transgression.  They embrace anything that pisses off "political correctness", and political correctness is anything that people believe that is "nice".  Social Security, not executing people, not racial profiling, hell, racism itself.

One of Reagan's advisors said that politics is TV with the sound off.

Perry lapped Bachmann, not because he's any saner than she is, but because he LOOKS like a President.  It wasn't Bachmann's crazy utterances that cost her, it was her crazy eyes.  Perry can speak the crazy in low, Texas-y tones.

They eat that up.

There are still three months before the Monkey Show really takes off in Iowa.  That's a lot of time to uncover the mounds of fetid crap in Perry's background.  But if Romney can't change the optics of Perry, I don't think he can catch him.

And if Perry gets the nomination, Obama wins.

Ponzi Scheme?

Really?