And Then Along Comes Perry

For what it's worth, I'm glad longtime Texas governor Rick Perry has thrown his ten-gallon hat into the national ring.  Because now that he's in (and rather popular, according to the most recent polls) Perry's no-nonsense, candid-by-the-grace-of-God approach helps clarify the crossroad America again finds itself at in this upcoming election.

Now call me young and foolish, but the proverbial crossroad I'm referring to looks an awful lot like the one the country found itself at in 2008.  And 2004.  2000.... 1980....  Every election since 1820, and a few before.  In terms of direction, American voters have been grappling for quite a while over the roles of government and the private sector.

More than that, there is the vision of America voters will have to (again, try to) choose next November.  The electoral hiccup of last year's midterms notwithstanding, America had largely voted for Change and Hope (and that sort of thing) in 2008.  People voted for more accessible health care, for a more stable foreign and economic policy, for tightened regulation and market oversight; for bigger government, basically.

Feeling a bit young and foolish after the somewhat dismally slow (and at times, recidivist) executive movements churned out since '08, I nonetheless feel certain that despite the recent upsurge of Tea Partyist activism the majority of Americans remain moderate at the least, and at best are still hoping for something more out of their government.  Getting back to Rick Perry, I'd say as a candidate he epitomizes what America is really voting for or against:  a Christ-makes-White, apple pie, saccharine-neighborly and judiciously vindictive, bootstraps NIMBY amalgam of xenophobia and foreign tax shelters, of marginalized infrastructure and codified indifference.  A Dawn of the Working Poor sort of scape, where wide-o corporations do as they will with the privileges of unjailable people and the circus act of state legislatures, laughable state constitutions, and introverted local politics have free reign to rule the day.

Not quite that maybe, but in no uncertain terms the Tea Party banner is an anti-system movement, the monkeys wrenching up the apparatus (as so wonderfully put by NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow) so to speak.  But no critics can put the message better than candidate Perry himself, who recently promised (among other things) that "I'll work every day to make Washington, DC as inconsequential in your life as I can."  And that's the platform embraced by nearly all of his Republican peers currently vying for the presidency.  In 2012, a Republican vote will very likely be a vote cast for an idyllic non-president running a non-government.  

Serious changes are afoot, rumblings within the Grand Old Party that - if nothing else - will make the choice next November a lot more clearly defined.