How sick has our politics gotten? This sick:
An Austin Ron Paul supporter has taken out a full-page ad in the local alt weekly newspaper seeking any “stripper … escort … or ‘young hottie'” who has slept with Rick Perry, part of his single-minded jihad against the presidential candidate.
Robert Morrow describes himself as a “self-employed investor and political activist” as well as a three-time delegate to the Texas state GOP convention.
“Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” blares the ad, placed by Morrow in this week’s Austin Chronicle. “Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a ‘young hottie’ impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas? Contact CASH, and we will help you publicize your direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, ‘family values’ hypocrite and fraud.”
Something like this could work towards Perry’s favor, since it is so loathsome. Also: in today’s climate if a woman answered the ad it might not be enough to derail his candidacy (so far the biggest threat to that is his own pronoucements).
On the other hand, if the ad is answered by a sheep, porcupine or pair of womens’ high heel shoes, he might have campaign problems.
BOTTOM LINE: The story will help him more than hurt him since it underscores how our politics is now fixated on getting things to destroy people as people rather than defeat them on the battleground of their ideas.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.