Bachmann-Perry Overdrive

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576507933332443602.html

The questions about Mr. Perry concern how well his Lone Star swagger will sell in the suburbs of Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the election is likely to be decided. He can sound more Texas than Jerry Jones, George W. Bush and Sam Houston combined, and his muscular religiosity also may not play well at a time when the economy has eclipsed culture as the main voter concern.

The emergence of Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann is nonetheless more evidence that GOP voters continue to have doubts about their candidates

If your strategy includes elevating Sarah Palin to the national stage and encouraging the uglier fringes of the movement to question the President's birthplace and religion, maybe you should have a different endgame than "find candidate with a unifying theme".

The whole point of the Tea Party was that there was too much compromise, not finding common ground with independents. Wall Street conservatives encouraged divisiveness because it helped bludgeon Obama and now they heartbroken at the divisive candidates that they find. Their bets became worthless the minute reporters started asking questions about Mitch Daniels marriage situation, causing him to drop out.

The whole kabuki theater enacted by the sane portion of the conservative movement from the summer of 2010 on, in which the president was weakened by a hail of ridiculous fury from the John Birch wing, was supposed to end in a catharthis of the Tea Party rage, which would subside in time to elect Romney or Daniels. Sorry. The story is not going to end that way. The debt limit battle was the nadir of the Tea Party movement, but they still own the GOP.

Time to pay the devil his due.