President Perry?

As President Obama's numbers plummet along with the stock market and the nation's economic growth numbers, and Governor Perry's poll numbers continue to rise, now well past his only serious opponent, Governor Romney, the possibility that Perry might become our next president is increasing. One cannot discount the fact that Texas, under his stewardship for the past twelve years, is booming economically and has produced about half of the new jobs in the nation over this recession.

Still, he has some extreme views that worry me. But Russ Smith in his piece Is Barack Obama Dumb? (he argues he isn't) makes this point:

As I’ve written before in this space, Perry’s adherence to creationism, apparent fear of homosexuals, abortion opposition, constant invocations of God and dismissal of global warming make me queasy, but in next year’s election those extreme right-wing positions won’t really matter. The only issue is the dreadful economy, which shows no sign of improving before voters pass down their verdict, and while you can scoff at Texas’ remarkable job creation in the past several years—the general liberal reckoning is that all those jobs are at minimum-wage fast food joints—it’s not as if Obama can make any boasts about his own record on that score.

I think he is right. President Obama has said all the right things (from my point of view, at least) about gays, global warming, and abortion, but he has failed miserably at getting the economy going again and dealing with the joblessness. I could tolerate some extreme views on these subjects (especially since the President can't really put many of them into practice without the full support of Congress) if it came along with some effective and hard-nosed approaches to things like the economy and the debt.

Still, Republicans would be wise to listen to Mike Huckabee's recent advice:

Republicans have to nominate someone better than the person they want to defeat. If they get so adamant that they will only support a candidate that believes everything on their checklist, they will re-elect Obama.