Perry and the GOP's Feckless Establishment

WASHINGTON — The Republican establishment is said to have grave qualms about Gov. Rick Perry.Here’s the problem: There is no Republican establishment. It squanderedits authority by building up the tea party’s brigades and then fearingthem too much to do anything to check their power.

Worse for thosewho think Perry would be a general election disaster is the growing confidenceamong conservatives that President Obama will be easy to beat. This feelingwill be bolstered by Tuesday’s special election that sent a Republicanto Congress from New York’s 9th District for the first time since 1923.If Obama is going to lose anyway, many conservatives reason, why not gowith their hearts?

No, if Perry isto be defeated, he will have to do the job himself. And the week’s mostimportant political news is that he might do just that.

His vulnerabilitieswere certainly on display at this week’s CNN/tea party debate. Perry stillhasn’t disentangled himself from his past suggestions that Social Securityis unconstitutional. He will also be hurt by his humane position on immigration.He should be praised for it, but it will only bring him scorn among GOPprimary voters.

His biggest problem,however, is his executive order requiring pre-teen girls to be immunizedagainst a disease that causes cervical cancer, a decision the religiousright didn’t like and that Perry now says was a mistake. The dangerouscharge here is influence peddling.

He issued the orderafter he was lobbied by his former chief of staff who went to work forMerck, the drug company that makes the vaccine. It turns out Perry hasreceived almost $30,000 in contributions from Merck over the years (notjust the $5,000 he mentioned in the debate), and his ties to Merck havebeen documented to run deeper than that.

Perry’s responseto the pay-for-play intimation from Rep. Michele Bachmann was one of theworst of its sort ever offered by a politician. “The company was Merck,and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” Perrydeclared, misreporting the donor’s generosity. “I raise about $30million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”The single question this raised in a listener’s mind was: So how much can you be bought for? The question will linger.

This helps MittRomney. It also cheers most Republicans who pass for establishment thesedays and who worry that the tea party crowd will get Perry nominated. Yetthese Republicans have only themselves to blame for abdicating to the farright.

Business lobbies,once a moderating force, are largely out for themselves, concentratingtheir energies on how much they can secure in tax and regulatory benefits.

Moderate politicianshave been drummed out of the party or silenced as its leaders have playedball with the extremists throughout Obama’s term, rarely calling out theirmost outlandish and mendacious attacks. The theory was that anything thatweakened Obama was good for the GOP. When tea party commentators profferedconspiracy theories straight out of the old John Birch Society playbook,Republican officials either stayed mum or nodded sagely as if their newallies were referencing Edmund Burke or Milton Friedman.

The Republicantriumph in a New York City district that uses a lovely stretch of waterto connect white ethnic neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn will aggravatethe party’s overconfidence and prevent a showdown with the tea party.

Republican BobTurner’s victory with 54 percent of the vote in what had been Anthony Weiner’sdistrict is certainly alarming for Democrats. The White House will be tampingdown panic by pointing to local factors, but its supporters in Congressare paying heed to the ill winds that blew in from Jamaica Bay.

Still, this areawas greatly affected by the politics of 9/11 and its Democratic presidentialvote has dropped steadily since the 2000 election. Obama won just 55 percentin 2008, only two points more than his national share. The swing againstthe Democrats on Tuesday thus roughly matched Obama’s drop in the nationalpolls. The result tells us what we already knew, not more.

Yet if conservativessee New York 9 as further evidence that Obama is a pushover, Rick Perry– if he doesn’t self-destruct — will be able to tell them he is the guywho can destroy the Great Society, the New Deal and the Progressive Erawith one decisive blow. And no establishment will be there to stop him.