WASHINGTON – It’s the lazy summer season of August politics, bringing with it the usual flame-throwin’, g-droppin’ GOP wingnut that fuels the presidential primary season, but doesn’t offer the leadership so desperately needed to get the country out of the Obama economic malaise. Rick Perry’s low-wage race to the bottom certainly isn’t the answer for the middle class.

19. It ranks 47th median household net worth (averaged from 2007 to 2009). – 21 Reasons Rick Perry’s Texas Is a Complete Disaster

But it’s what the latest right-wing Tea Party fanatic, Gov. Rick Perry, said over the weekend that mimicked what Herman Cain said last week that’s really troubling. Cain was defending himself against charges he doesn’t have foreign policy experience by questioning, “and he has?”, speaking of Pres. Obama. My response via Twitter went like this: Just saw Cain’s “He’s got foreign policy experience?” As commander in chief, Obama gave order SEAL Team 6 executed that killed OBL. You?

This is a direct attack on Pres. Obama as commander in chief utilizing the deadly virus of birtherism and division that Americans are sick to death of hearing from the Right.

Tea Party secessionist Rick Perry, a former military man, thinks this is what America wants to hear today:

“One of the reasons, one of the powerful reasons that I’m running for the presidency of the United States is to make sure that every young man and woman who puts on the uniform of this country respects highly the president of the United States.” – Gov. Rick Perry (Waterloo, Iowa)

You can win a wingnut primary battle through this sort of despicable dog whistle, but you’ll never win the general election on it. Mr. Perry’s brand of birtherism won’t hunt in 2012. People have serious problems and doubts right now and the general electorate is not going to fall for Perry’s brand of voodoo economics.

Some Republicans know this and are scared to death. And you know what, any Republican who wants to beat Obama should be.

“You don’t want these candidates moving so Right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message in the primary. People want to win. They don’t want somebody who goes so far to the extremes of either party that they lack a chance to carry a victory off in November.” – Karl Rove

It’s also highly doubtful hyperbolic charges of “treasonous” actions by Bernanke will help Perry win over an already nervous Wall Street establishment.

Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.