Texas Governor Rick Perry gives his opinion of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke:
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.”
I wonder what Perry considers "ugly." Perhaps he means he'd charge Bernanke with murder, execute him following a conviction based on faulty evidence, and then try to cover it up after the fact?
Liberals are clamoring for the Fed to do something to help the economy--in this case printing money. But Perry thinks this would be "treason." Now you might ask, what exactly does an aspiring secessionist like Perry have against treason?
Well it's pretty simple. If the Fed actually helped stimulate the economy, Perry or whomever the Republican nominee is would have a harder time winning the election, because Obama would benefit from stronger growth. So if Bernanke actually helped the American economy, he would help Obama, who in Perry's view has shown "arrogance and the audacity" towards "the values that are important to the people of America." Helping Obama win, albeit indirectly, would therefore be an act of treason. Although I'm sure that Perry's people will try to argue, implausibly, that Perry just feels really, really strongly about inflation.
This kind of campaign script--Democrats and liberals (and the Republican Fed Chairs who work with them!) are not merely illegitimate political actors, but enemies of the state--explains part of the enthusiasm the Perry campaign is inspiring in the Republican base. For a certain active segment of the party, excommunicating one's political opponents from any claim to the country, preferably through intimations of vigilante violence, is the kind of culture war campaigning that strokes their conservative id to the point of rapturous climax.
