A digital spigot, not the set I'm referring to though...

This morning, as I scanned my preferred digital spigots for the interesting or unusual, I found both.

In the race for the republican presidential nomination, some real news…Iowa’s own Michelle Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll, narrowly defeating, of all people, Ron Paul. That WAS interesting for a number of reasons which I’ll get into shortly…

Then, only a short time later came the news that Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty would bail on his completely ineffectual campaign for the GOP nod…Throw in the towel for what was the equivalent of a nationally televised race to a face-plant. I’m sure his now ex-campaign team members are probably erasing the incident from their LinkedIn profiles as you read this…

Even relatively unknown Utahan Jon Huntsman didn’t give up the ship that quickly, and he came in both behind Mr. Pawlenty and hundreds of votes behind the ex-CEO of a second tier pizza chain…As did Mitt Romney, but could it be Mr. Pawlenty was actually executing some of the GOP sound-bite-claimed fiscal discipline? Taking The Gambler’s advice and opting to walk away from the table rather than press on out of hubris? I don’t have his financials, but to my knowledge TPAW wasn’t sitting on several hundred million dollars of family assets to pay for his campaign…

The interesting thing about a contrast between Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Pawlenty, outside of their personal fiscal liquidity, is the ‘belief’ factor. Michelle Bachmann actually believes she’s doing the right thing (no ‘callings’ reported yet though) and is fighting for the values of the constituents she represents…And this belief comes across…Not always in-line with oh say actual history or the facts…See below:

But at least she has and can project the genuine belief, where TPAW, ah, not so much…You could tell from the get go, that he, deep down, felt he was overselling himself…More of an Acura or a Lexus salesman than a presidential candidate…So much for “Tomorrow Beginning Today” eh TPAW?

As a fan of Texas Hold’em…When you make an all in bet, there is a moment when you decide…And then sometimes there’s the moment when you realize ‘the deciding’ was a BAAaaaaAAAD call. Oh well, it’s not like we behead failed presidential candidates…YET…

I’m sure we’ll see Mr. Pawlenty on the CNN Parade of Pundit Clowns somewhere in 2012…

And then there was Rick Perry…

DangerousMinds.net is running an interesting albeit perhaps overreaching contrast by way of photography of Texas Governor Rick Perry who only just yesterday announced his candidacy for president, and none other than the Anti-Christ himself, Adolph Hitler.

Certainly no one can slight the Dangerous Minds editorial team for pulling their punches considering Mr. Perry’s candidacy is officially less than 24 hours old…Apart from a pointed caption, a “thanks” for the referral to the photo and the headline, the editor(s?) simply let the photos speak for themselves…The posts’ brevity worked in a curious and seemingly obvious images are worth-one-thousand-words way without any real need for copy.

Being a northern liberal elitist, my mind saw what it wanted to see…Rick Perry in what at first glance could have been some subversive organization’s regalia, but spend 75 seconds with the photo and you realize he’s just standing there during his college years as an Aggie in, as one of the commenters notes, his ‘corps of cadets’ uniform.

Now, apart from some NYTimes.com articles, I don’t know boo about Rick Perry…But images like this and the clips surfacing are reviving my post-43 era trauma/stress/disbelief with Mr. Perry’s knowing sly smile and the tenor of his platitudinal claims…That said, I’m damn eager to listen/watch…If he’s a threat to BO, which I don’t think he is, I want to know sooner rather than later.

Not much new to hear/see yet though…Couldn’t find any video of his announcement, perhaps because he was speaking to a group of conservative bloggers…I did find his announcement remarks. A geeky note, the man apparently doesn’t own http://rickperry.com – Good luck with that.

One item I did come across, which was again found in the comments section of the Dangerous Minds post, pointed to a New Yorker article about a Texas man who had been convicted of a horrendous crime he apparently didn’t commit and who was summarily put to death despite strong evidence to the contrary which had been brought to Governor Perry’s attention.

Governor Perry’s office said after a review of the materials, ‘the governor made his decision based on the facts of the case’.

The story, called “Trial by Fire” is a long read, but as with most things found inside an issue of the New Yorker, well constructed and engaging…Moreover, insightful and disturbing…And Inspirational; The piece compelled me to write this post…

A welcome reminder of what I believe all of my elitist liberal friends and I have in common, namely; A willingness to listen, to value logic and sound reasoning in the pursuit of solving problems above hysteria and nationalistic loyalties in the pursuit of a simple/single perceived victory.

Well, I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Perry, and the rest of the GOP field…I hope he filed his papers on time and has his birth certificate handy…He may be King Fish in Texas, but he’s playing for all the chips on the nations’ table now.

_Bouv

ED NOTE: This post was revised from the original for what I perceived to be clarity at 5:45 PM on 8.14.11