Interesting article from Alternet…
I’ve always said the Republicans look backwards with fear while the Democrats look forward with hope.
Should Perry be the GOP nominee, it would definitely set up an interesting group of dynamics. Rich vs the Poor and Middle Class. Past vs Future. Corporate Power vs The People. Ignorance vs Science and Knowledge. And yes, many, many more….including North vs South.
It would be one nasty, scary battle as Perry fights in the gutter. I just hope he’s done himself in with his comments about ending Social Security, Secession, and many, many more totally stupid comments….
However, America elected George W Bush, at least once, so I never under-estimate the power of ignorance and venality to triumph in this country….
Should Perry win the GOP presidential nomination, an obvious subtext of the presidential contest will be “Confederacy v. Union — The Rematch.” And, at the visual level, the theme will be conveniently reinforced by each man’s respective race.
Earlier this week, Perry delivered a speech from the stage of the 10,000-seat amphitheater at Liberty University, the evangelical institution founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the early leaders of the religious right and an opponent of school desegregation. “When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line,” Falwell told his flock in 1958, according to a report by Sarah Posner for AlterNet.
In introducing Perry to the Liberty U audience this week, Falwell’s son, Jerry Jr., lauded the Texas governor “for having the guts to say things that weren’t exactly politically correct, like when Gov. Perry said Texas might secede one day from the union.”
Indeed, Perry made such intimations more than once during the rancorous debate over the president’s health-care reform legislation. At the time, Tea Party leaders were vociferously talking up the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers not enumerated within the document, as the means for challenging the health-care bill’s mandate for individual purchase of health insurance. The impetus for all the 10th Amendment love comes from states’ rights advocates, often known as Tenthers, many of whom view the Civil War as the result of unlawful usurpation of power from the states by the federal government.
via Would a Perry v. Obama Contest Be a Confederacy v. Union Rematch? | | AlterNet.
Lost in the 21st Century 
It annoys me to see people equate states’ rights to slavery and the Civil War. Yes, Southern states claimed federal usurpation when it suited their pro-slavery arguments. But they also demanded federal intervention when it suited them. When Northern states attempted, using the powers reserved to them in the Tenth Amendment, to free slaves that escaped (i.e., making the argument that slaves who reached free states were declared free), the South responded by pushing the Fugitive Slave Act through Congress, which was nothing more than federal meddling. Let’s keep some perspective here.
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