Patton: Trump Out-Muscles Gov. Perry

So it’s come to this. Presidential candidates act like schoolboys engaged in a spitting contest on the playground. “Anything you can do, I can do better.”

Rick Perry, a former governor of Texas, followed an old rule in politics - “always punch up,” that is, only attack people who are bigger than yourself. If you win, you’re a hero. If you lose, you’re a gutsy underdog. Since the biggest dog nowadays is Donald Trump, Perry felt that he would get lots of attention and possibly enough support to qualify to the first presidential debate by laying into Trump. So, Perry called Trump “a cancer on conservatism.”

Trump doesn’t take criticism kindly, and he counterattacked, saying that Perry lacks the “energy,” “brain power,” and “toughness” to be an effective president. To Perry, a former Air Force captain who prides himself on his tough guy image, that punch was a low blow.

And Perry responded. “Perry and his aides have needled Trump for what they see as a mismatch between his tough talk and his tony, cosmopolitan image. On Wednesday, Perry’s senior strategist in Iowa, Bob Haus, used Twitter to note what Trump wore when he visited the Texas-Mexico border earlier this month. ‘This is what a Manhattan ‘tough guy’ wears to the southern border. White golf shoes and a linen jacket.’” (CNN, 07/30/2015)

Wow! The gauntlet had been thrown. There was no going back. How would this increasingly fiery dispute be resolved? A shouting contest? Not for a macho guy like Perry. He had something better in mind. “Let’s get a pull-up bar out there and let’s see who can do the most pull-ups.” (CBS News. 07/30/2015)

Two red-faced, sweaty, middle-aged men groaning and gasping for air as they attempt to deal with a pull-up bar. That’s certainly not going to dignify the presidency. In the end, Trump won and Perry lost. Oh, they never actually competed on the pull-up bar. But, when all was said and done, Trump had more than enough support to qualify for the presidential candidate debate, but Perry did not.

As if the image of two presidential candidates competing on a pull-up bar contest wasn’t strange enough, consider another candidate, Ted Cruz, frying bacon on the barrel of a machine gun. Doesn’t sound like such a hot idea, but perhaps nutty enough to draw attention and win Cruz a place at the presidential debate.

“’There are few things I enjoy more than on weekends cooking breakfast with the family,’ Cruz opens the video. Raw bacon and aluminum foil are then wrapped around the barrel of a machine gun at a firing range . . .
’He fires a number of shots at a target, noting grease dripping on the ground, followed by the big reveal: Cruz unwraps the foil and eats a forkful of bacon, laughing ‘Mmmm, machine-gun bacon.’” (NPR, 08/03/2015)

Did Cruz shoot himself in the foot with this video? First, Cruz made a mistake. He was using a semi-automatic AR-15, not a machine gun. Second, “when the Guardian contacted FoodSafety,gov - a federal website dedicated to promoting safe food consumption - a representative said the Texas method of bacon-cooking was unsafe. . .

“There is no way to accurately tell if the bacon is getting the proper amount of heat using this form of cooking. . . “ Gun manufacturers Smith and Wesson also advised against cooking this way. ‘We certainly wouldn’t recommend you cooking bacon on that,’ a representative said.” (The Guardian, 08/03/2015)

Third, viewers simply didn’t like Cruz’s video. “As of midday Tuesday, the YouTube video had about 290,000 views. Of about 3,400 votes, 63 percent said ‘I dislike this.’” (CNBC.com, 08/02/2015)

Although Cruz was wounded (figuratively) by the video, apparently the injury wasn’t fatal, as he qualified for the presidential debate.

So the next time you walk down the street and see someone doing something bizarre, pay that person no further mind. It’s probably just a presidential candidate running for office.

Speaking of doing bizarre things, what could be more strange than trying to install wind turbines on Mt. Washington. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening in my new, satirical novel about New Hampshire politics entitled “Selling Mt. Washington.” “Selling Mt. Washington” by Gary Patton is available in Portsmouth at the River Run Bookstore , Discover Portsmouth, and Tugboat Alley. In Exeter, this book can be obtained at The Water Street Bookstore and the Country Store at RiverWoods. In Hampton, look for it at the Galley Hatch gift shop. In Concord, “Selling Mt. Washington” can be found at Gibson’s Bookstore. It is also available on-line at Amazon.com.