The Texas gubernatorial race is heating up, and a liberal PAC ran a full-page anti-Rick Perry ad in 20 newspapers across the state today. Perry, the swaggering Republican incumbent, is known for his badass boots and his skills with a .380 Ruger . But he’s also known for ducking debates and avoiding editorial boards, so the ad brands Perry an all-caps “COWARD” and urges readers to “[t]ell Rick Perry to stop cowering and face Texas like a man.”
That kind of language might strike Don Draper as retro, but Don Draper lived in New York. It’s the kind of language that plays extremely well in the Lone Star State, where the football team is the Cowboys and news that Perry shot a coyote during a jog in April was greeted with adulation from the Red River to the Rio Grande.
Right now Sarah Palin seems to be pretty wrapped up in Alaska’s Senate race (where she’s unintentionally torpedoing Joe Miller), but I sure hope the queen of conservatives takes a few minutes to respond to the ad. (Even a tweet will do, Sarah!) After all, she can’t appreciate either the attack on Perry (whom she endorsed over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison) or the implication that there’s something uniquely masculine about standing up for what you believe. That’s what all her mama grizzlies are doing, right? Well , not all of them .
