Ah, so this is that version of Rick Perry who, according to folklore, is known to chug a full bathtub of champagne and benzos. It's his latest Iowa ad! "I'm a doer, not a talker," he says, cheerily, allowing sprightly music to plug up the holes in his otherwise hackneyed message. The man couldn't be any happier, as he skips off to a garden party in the Hundred Acre Wood.
What a great comedy ad that Herman Cain's campaign released yesterday, right? It's heartwarming to see one of these old, grizzled campaign hands, in this case chief of staff Mark Block, finally getting in front of the camera in his own element: Smoking a cigarette outside some building. Then there's terrible music, Herman Cain gradually smiling over the course of 10 seconds, the works. It's strange and exciting, effectiveness aside! And yet the image of this man smoking left many political writers somewhere between confused and horrified. What does the cigarette "mean"? It's today's hot topic.
We're nearing the part of the presidential campaign where Herman Cain was supposed to drop out and collect on his modest name recognition by going on a book tour. But something's gone terribly wrong: He's somehow the frontrunner, now? So he'll abandon his campaign for a month to go on a book tour anyway.
An Iowa convenience store owner tried to reward his most clairvoyant employees by awarding $10 to any cashier who correctly guessed which of their coworkers were soon to become an ex-coworker. Ten whole dollars! Enough to buy Doritos and gum for your entire family. Enough to buy ten Mega Lucky Power Lotto Ball tickets.
Attention pig farmers! Thieves who may or may not be operating in "well-organized rings" have been stealing hundreds of pigs owned by your Minnesota and Iowa brethren—most likely to sell as emotional-support animals the pork chops and hams of the future. Your porcine pals could be next!
Outrage at the University of Iowa Twitter Command Center! Because yesterday, after reports of mountain lion or cougar sightings near the Iowa City campus, the school's politics account tweeted, "I didn't know Bachmann was in town. Bah-dum-bum." Golly, what do those two things have to do with each other? According to the AP, "A cougar is a term used to refer to older women who seek out younger men." That simply cannot be true.
A strange report from early July about presidential candidate Herman Cain's troubles in Iowa mysteriously noted "swirling rumors between Cain's staff and volunteers in the Hawkeye State accusing each other of affairs, homosexuality and professional misconduct." And that was it! So what kind of gay shit was going down on the Cain Train? We're starting to learn.
On the morning of September 2, Council Bluffs, Iowa residents became concerned. Concerned about the strange man who was lurking across from the school bus stop on Benton Street, dressed as a hot dog. The police arrived. And were SHOCKED.
Sarah Palin has long planned to attend an Iowa rally organized by the Tea Party of America on September 3. The Tea Party folks invited popular author Christine O'Donnell to speak there, too! A fine catch, to be sure. But when you lump so many historically unreliable people and groups together, things tend to fall apart in comical fashion.
Some rather strange footage of Michele Bachmann began circulating over the weekend in which she appears at first glance—and with the help of the uploader's captions!—to be asking the crowd, "Who likes white people?" Hot dog, what a racist that Michele Bachmann is! But the video, like 99% of the Internet, is a cruel hoax.
There have been several chapters in the still-extremely-early 2012 presidential race. There was the time that Newt Gingrich's smarts and policy chops was going to shake up the contest. That ended. There was the time Herman Cain's business acumen and tea party ties were going to be a real factor in the race. That didn't work out. Then, of course, there was Donald Trump. Remember him?
There's an art to shit-talking your co-workers. If you are to indulge in it, there's a certain checklist of precautions you'll need to take:
Michele Bachmann emerged as the GOP presidential frontrunner this past weekend, thanks to her first-place finish in the Iowa straw poll. So how did she pull it off? As Stephen Colbert explained on tonight's Report, it wasn't her charisma—or the Randy Travis concert inside her tent—that gave Bachmann the edge in Ames. But the 6,000 voting tickets she bought and then handed out to supporters may have had something to do with it. Video of Colbert's segment is above.
Bill Clinton joked today that he was "tickled" to see Rick Perry, a "good lookin' rascal," enter the presidential contest over the weekend. He sees Perry's entrance, along with his pledge to keep the government as far away as possible from individual lives as president, as only the latest development in the 30-year campaign to discredit the federal government's ability to do good.
