Dinged?

In my book, if by now you deny catastrophic climate change and somehow put the blame on "greedy scientists" (as opposed to the truly corrupt scientists taking their money and marching orders from big oil companies and the Koch Family talking points), you are no longer qualified for higher elective office:

In his stump speech, Perry referenced "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."

"We're seeing weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change," Perry said. "Yes, our climates change. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed."

Fool or grifter? I'd go with the latter, but maybe he's less smart than he even looks.

And if Perry is flying in as the savior of the Party, how come his Party leaders are reacting like this:

Since then, we've had Karl Rove -- of all people -- warning about the GOP field growing too extreme (by which he actually means, "too full of Rick Perry," whom Rove hates).

Now, we're firmly back in "somebody send us a savior" territory, with the air full of rumors that various "candidates to be named later" are poised to become "candidates to be forming presidential exploratory committees very soon."

For example: "Paul Ryan needs to run for President," say some people! Yes, despite the fact that Ryan (R-Wis.) enjoys enormous influence over the political landscape from his easy-to-defend House seat, it seems that your "Paul Ryan should run for President" boomlet is not going to go away anytime soon.

Earlier this week, the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes floated the notion that Ryan was "strongly considering a run for president." That was followed by metric ton of rumors and further insistences along the same lines. And now comes the news that Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush -- two men who have previously found their names on the 2012 wishlist -- "promoting" the notion of a Ryan run in the GOP primary.

By all means, Paul Ryan, you Ayn Randian ideologue, run.