Rick Perry, Honey Badger

The more that I've thought about what might happen in 2012, I keep coming back to the notion of worldview. Writing at Politico, Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman see the same thing, especially given the potential role of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.

The epidemic of lefty angst isn’t just a matter of specific Perry policies though; it goes to the heart of the liberal worldview. His smashing debut on the presidential stage suggests that the victory of an urban liberal Democrat, Barack Obama, wasn’t a step toward a more progressive nation, but just a leftward swing of an increasingly wild pendulum, now poised to rocket to the right.

I get the impression that Rick Perry's style really grates on liberals. If my Facebook feed is any indication, the reaction to Perry is pretty visceral. I get a lot of "ugh, I thought we were past that" and "my God, he's even worse than Bush" from the comments I see.

The one key difference between George W. Bush and Rick Perry is this:  Bush sometimes pretended not to care about liberal opinion, but he actually did, which is hardly surprising given his background. Perry seems to take the "honey badger" approach to the matter (link NSFW). He just doesn't care. That's why he's getting a lot of love from the conservative base.