(Reuters)

I was taken aback by a recent political ad from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, not just because the content is so vile and homophobic but because for years Perry has been dogged by rumors that he is gay.

I don’t mean “gay” in the playground pejorative sense, I mean that he’s had to fend off talk that he’s a closeted homosexual. These unsubstantiated rumors have followed Perry since 2004, when he had to deny having a homosexual affair in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman. More recently this summer, Politico ran a story on the subject, comparing the perpetuation of those rumors to the fringe movement of the “birthers” who believe President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.

One might defend the Republican presidential candidate against such a smear campaign of unproven gossip—and until two weeks ago I would have agreed—but once you use the private sexual lives of other people as a tool to drum up votes, you open yourself up to the rest of us talking about what you do in the bedroom.

The anti-gay ad, in which he struts around a meadow in a Carhartt jacket (what an awesome cultural signifier of “real” America) and bemoans that something is wrong with this country when “gays can serve openly in our military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas,” may be the most brazenly homophobic ad by a national candidate ever.

Given how hateful and tasteless it is, anyone who thinks realistically about what fuels homophobia cannot help but raise an eyebrow. This is actually a good tip for you guys out there: Think about the most homophobic friend you have (because we all have them) and note his discomfort when the topic arises in conversation. If his reaction is bizarrely hateful, it’s fair to speculate whether the dude has thought about what you look like naked..

And given the tolerance my generation is slowly shaming our parents and grandparents into, you can now no longer toss around homophobic slurs. The code has changed to “stuff” like Perry’s ad.

We are living through one of the fastest civil rights paradigm shifts in American history. To have gone from a majority anti-gay marriage country and a homophobic president ready to enact a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality to that right being extended in multiple states, Obama ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and a complete reversal in public support in just a few short years is remarkable.

So I don’t feel bad for Rick Perry because of his continued fight against these rumors. I feel bad because someday his grandchildren will watch that ad.

1) Everyone knows where they’re going except me (After wandering around outside and getting questioned by several police officers who must have figured–despite my tie and nice blue shirt–that I’m stoned [already] or a terrorist, I finally found my way into the media filing center after only half an hour. This has to be some kind of record for getting the most lost in a one-acre area, but I bet Brian Williams had like escorts helping him to his seat or something)

2) There’s free food and coffee. I’m already on my fourth turkey wrap. I love journalism.

Quickly, we must go over where the race stands. Tonight’s debate will include front-runner Willard “Mitt” Romney, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Rick “Santorum” Santorum and Ron Paul. There are three tiers right now in the Republican primary.

The Romney Tier

This includes Mitt Romney, the presumptive front-runner, who has consistently polled around 20%, is hated by the right-wing Tea Party faction, and who suffered two defeats during yesterday’s off-year election. First, Ohio rejected Issue 2, otherwise known as Governor John Kasich’s attempt to destroy collective-bargaining rights for public employee unions. The state overwhelmingly shot down the law by a margin of 61% to 39%. This is the law that Romney hemmed and hawed on before re-endorsing, but it also means he’s taken an unpopular stance on an issue in a very important swing state.

Additionally, it appears as though even Mississippi is not quite crazy enough to amend their state constitution to count everything “from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof” as a person (even if you are pro-life, please think about the implications of this). Even though we all know Romney is secretly pro-choice and, much like George H. W. Bush, would be highly unlikely to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, he came out in favor of Mississippi’s measure (in characteristic fashion, only after rejecting a “personhood” amendment at a Sept. 5th debate in South Carolina).

The Second Choice Tier

The second choice tier is inhabited by the flavor of the moment. First it was Bachmann, then Perry, and now Herman Cain, who despite having been accused of everything except actually raping a woman, continues to poll well. It should be noted that the current accusations by Sharon Bialek should be classified as “sexual assault” and not “sexual harassment” due to the physical nature of the charges.

Oh, and he’s less qualified to be president than Justin Bieber’s illegitimate child, but that seems almost beside the point. To paraphrase a Jacob Weisberg tweet when all this broke, “Can we just skip the scandal and go back to not taking Herman Cain seriously?”

The Everyone Else Tier

Unfortunately for Republicans (and fortunately for Romney), this tier encompasses everyone else. Ron Paul supporters have basked the Oakland campus in Paul signage, but he’s never broken his 12% ceiling in popularity. Perry has turned out to be a clown, although I still put his odds at getting back in the game as the highest. Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman remain about as popular as bankers at Occupy Wall Street, while Bachmann, despite her Tea Party street cred has vanished into night.

As a thorough-going political nerd, I’m ecstatic with excitement over this–enough so that I’ll be renting a car and driving five hours to Oakland University near Auburn Hills where the Michigan GOP will hold the debate.

So here’s what I’m going to try: I’m going to–I think, I guess–blog about the debate live, while it’s happening. I’m not typically a fan of that format because I likes me my editing and rewriting, but this is such a weird opportunity, I can hardly pass it up. So the rest of this week’s blogging will be consumed by this one event, and you can either tune in and follow along or just catch up at a later date.

Again, I have no idea how this will work out. It may be that security will sniff out my contempt for free market orthodoxy, corporate welfare targeted at agribusiness, military contractors and the fossil fuel behemoths, and anti-science religious zealots and stop me from even getting through the door. Then again, I already got my parking pass e-mailed to me, and I printed it out and everything.

Also, I may ingest some kind of psychotropic substance so that I might stand a better chance of understanding how raising taxes on poor people will help the economy. Like I said, seat of my pants, so be sure to tune in.

Jonny Huntsman, you wild, wicked, rogue, rebel, badass, crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat motherf***er.

First you Tweet: “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

Then you get on “This Week” and call Rick Perry a wingnut for saying that scientists have made up climate change to get funding and that evolution and creationism are theories of equal merit.

You, sir, are outta your goddamn mind, and I’m loving it.

What Republican primary are you running in? Barely anyone in your party can admit that science itself is real let alone science’s most controversial, anti-free market, anti-religious conclusions.

You, Jon Huntsman, are like the upstart kid in a biker gang who suddenly walks up to the head honcho and head butts him in the face, sending blood spraying in every direction, and you wipe some of the blood off your face, lick it off your fingers, and say, “Tastes like pussy.”

You are a son of anarchy, Huntsman. Did you know that 68% of Republicans don’t believe in evolution, according to a 2007 Gallup poll? And 53% don’t believe in global warming, according to a Pew Research Center poll from last year? Who the hells votes are you trying to get, you nutty bastard?

It’s like you just rode into town on a horse, shot the sheriff in the brain, set fire to the saloon, and when they asked why you did it, you told ‘em, “Because I was bored.”

You are out of your damn mind, Jack. Not only will you now be unacceptable to the Republican primary electorate, they probably won’t even let you into the debates. They might not even give you a sip of water if your campaign bus breaks down and you’re dying of thirst.

All respect, Huntsman. Props–mad props!–to a candidate who would so flagrantly say things for which overwhelming evidence and reason are the crucial components. I’d move to Iowa and vote for your well-coiffed Mormon self if I could beat the deadline.

I’d vote for you just to watch you in more debates, standing on stage, pissing in the faces of the Idiocracy that consumes so much of the political right. I’d vote for you just to hear Perry and Bachmann explain any zygote of evidence for intelligent design and an alternate explanation of the earth’s climate system. I’d vote for you just to watch you beat the stupid out of them with rhetorical baseball bats, chains, and trash can lids.

Much love, Huntsman. Much love.

“The Colbert Report” sits on a strange patch of grass in both the comedic and political landscapes. The little brother to “The Daily Show” and certainly the more uneven of the two programs, Stephen Colbert and his weird, hilarious conceptual shtick of playing a blowhard, self-obsessed conservative talk show host in the easily-ridiculed vein of Hannity or O’Reilly nevertheless has proven itself a gem since its debut in 2004.

Often I’ll find Colbert can coax a greater belly laugh out of me than Stewart, possibly because his Second City training here in Chicago taught him the wonders of irreverence. His character’s illogical fears, goofy antics, and occasional down-right nonsensical side gigs (as a Korean pop star, for instance) occasionally cause me to piss myself a little.

Both Stewart and Colbert have ventured from satire into outright activism on occasion, but Colbert has undoubtedly proved the more brazen personality. His I’m-Not-Laughing-With-You-I’m-Laughing-At-You roast of President Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2006 remains one of the funniest, most awkward yet watchable car crash moments of that presidency, and his testimony before congress about the plight of undocumented workers is probably the most attention paid to that cause by a white person in the last three years.

Now, however, with his work on the Colbert SuperPac, I think it’s reasonable for the Pulitzer Committee, which hands out the most prestigious prize in journalism each year, to give Colbert and his writers serious consideration.

Colbert has used his SuperPac to demonstrate how the unholy flood of untraceable campaign money released into the political system by the Supreme Court case Citizens United actually works.

While every other news source in the country reports on this phenomenon, no news organization from the New York Times to CBS News has highlighted so beautifully just how insidious the this new regime actually is (and given how previously insidious the old regime of money and politics was, this is no small feat).

Colbert nonchalantly uses his show to drum up money for his SuperPac without ever bothering to tell his audience what he’ll spend the money on (although we all have a pretty good clue) and all but bribes viewers to contribute by putting their names on a ticker scrolling along the bottom of the screen (“Heroe$, they’re called).

The first set of ads, which ran on local Iowa stations prior to the Iowa straw poll, featured an endorsment of Rick Parry (with an “A” rather than an “E”) as well as standard campaign ad catnip of waving grains, hard-working folk and pornographic corn. In a bizarre twist, the treasurer for Colbert SuperPac just resigned to take the same role in Perry’s actual presidential campaign, which I think goes to show that all of these political operatives don’t really care where the paycheck comes from.

Colbert commented on the move in typical fashion via an e-mail to Politico:

“We’re happy for Sal and we are even happier that Governor Parry has sent the clear signal of which super PAC he trusts to receive all that unlimited money waiting to pour in on his behalf. Loud and clear, sir. Unofficially, loud and clear.”

The interesting thing to watch going forward will be whether or not Colbert and his writers can craft commercials and other media to continue cutting, scalpel-like, through the fatty tissue of our political system to expose how the deregulated campaign finance system has let the wolves in to run the henhouse. I was encouraged by a recent episode where they created a word cloud of what Colbert SuperPac supporters were asking for and then discarded it in favor of a word cloud that represented what the wealthiest donors favored. Appropriately, the first cloud’s largest word was “Marijuana” while the second’s was “Tax.”

As an exercise in democratic education, Colbert has staked out new territory, taking the satire perfected by “The Daily Show” brand to a new level of civic engagement.

Check out the Colbert SuperPac’s first two ads for Rick Parry above and below.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry attempts to quiet the crowd after his introduction by Reverend C. L. Jackson during "The Response" at Reliant Stadium in Houston on Aug. 6. (Richard Carson, Reuters)

Rick Perry has hopped aboard the Republican presidential primary, and I’ll predict right now that barring some kind of scandal or damaging revelation, he will be the Republican nominee with a decent-enough shot of beating President Obama to make any reasonable person more or less terrified.

The Republican primary as it stands now is a mess. Tim Pawlenty (he gone), Newt Gingrich, and John Huntsman fizzled immediately. Michelle Bachmann–Newsweek cover and straw poll victory aside–is far too controversial for an establishment-controlled Republican party to nominate and put up for certain defeat. And front-runner Mitt Romney is a flame-out waiting to happen. Because it’s early and candidates are still jockeying for position, no one is really hitting him yet, but the guy once supported abortion, gay rights, and the exact same health care bill that Obama passed and conservatives so revile. As my friend Scott, put it to me about Romney’s chances, “It just can’t be that easy.”

Enter Perry.

Romney’s front-runner status is contingent on basically two factors: people have heard of him, and he has money. The first takes care of itself now that Perry has gotten in the race and as has been noted, he’s got Texas-sized fundraising skillz.

Perry hits a Republican sweet-spot, a nexus of religious fundamentalism, American magical-thinking, and trope-employing fiscal delusion. He’s Tea Party enough for that crowd while giving the wink and a nod toward the corporate elite to convince them he’s a team player. He’s tall, handsome, and has that silver fox swagger that makes George W. Bush’s codpiece look a size smaller.

And the only knock against him is something along the lines of “the American public wouldn’t vote for another Texas governor.”

Well, we all know the old P.T. Barnum saying, and this makes Perry particularly dangerous. But not quite as dangerous as what his governing would do to a country already in the grips of multiple crises.

Obviously, under a Perry administration any attention toward unemployment–other than more tax cuts, one presumes–would be anathema. As Mother Jones points out, digging into his stellar fiscal record reveals its flimsiness. If he were to win, it would likely mean his coattails would flip the Senate to the Republicans, and suddenly the disembowelment of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would all be on the table.

While the Obama administration has been thoroughly disappointing on civil liberties issues, finding few ways to turn back the assaults of the Bush administration, there is no reason to think that Perry wouldn’t go farther and that we’d be back to beating and fake-drowning people–including our own citizens.

Or as a foreign policy adviser put it, “He has no sympathy for the neo-isolationist impulses emanating from some quarters of the Republican Party.”

This is a governor who almost without question oversaw the execution of an innocent man, and if you haven’t read the sickening story of Cameron Todd Willingham, I suggest you take half an hour to do so.

Of most concern, though, is Perry’s atrocious record on, like, reality.

He’s firmly in the branch of American “thought” that bends over backward to reject scientific certainties. For instance, he supported teaching the thoroughly discredited and laughable theory of “intelligent design.”

But he also is a climate change denialist. Like Bush, Perry thoroughly coats himself in signals and cues for the Religious Right, and his call to prayer, “The Response,” is proof that he knows how to play that fiddle. Yet his call to Texans to “Pray for Rain” as their state burns this year–experiencing unprecedented heat, drought, and wildfires that incinerated 1.8 million acres–is where the rubber meets the road. Seeing as how he filed a lawsuit this past year to block EPA from regulating climate-changing gasses, I see any positive environmental action coming from a Perry administration as slightly less likely than Kanye West retiring to a picturesque country home to live out the rest of his life in whimsical solitude.

Should Perry get the nomination, he is going to be loaded for bear when it comes to money and he will generate near limitless excitement among the Religious Right. The economy will still be terrible and unemployment high. An Obama-Perry race would likely be the biggest cultural confrontation since the ’60s.

This country cannot afford another religious zealot who thinks God wants him to be president and who denies the very reality of the most serious issues engulfing us.

I’ve seen that movie before.