Yesterday, CBS sent one of their intrepid reporters to Rick Perry’s hometown of Paint Creek, Texas. Apart from the media’s typical fawning over quaint old small town America, there is some interesting history in the video clip.

Astute observers will note that the next President of the United States did not graduate in the top ten percent of his high school class (he was third in a class of 13). Together with previous revelations of Perry’s below-par college transcript, these observers will probably say that Perry ain’t presidential material.

However, even more astute observers will note that the current President of the United States graduated from Columbia University and Havard Law School, was president of the Havard Review, and taught at the University of Chicago. Maybe some of these observers would suggest that the current President has conclusively severed any link between a high level of academic attainment and a successful presidency. We at RickPerryRolling have no comment to make at this time.

Paint Creek, Texas

Rattlesnakes?

We have rattlesnakes.

Scorpions?

Oh yes.

Fire ants?

…Yes. You’re probably standing in some.

“Rick Perry is not like other politicians.”

This isn’t the campaign ad you’re looking for…

A pro-Bachmann PAC is attacking Rick Perry’s spending record during his time as Governor of Texas. Someone ought to tell them that it’ll take a much stronger Jedi mind trick than this to bend the truth:

The claim in the ad that Perry doubled spending in a decade as Governor is just flat wrong. Without getting super boring about it, figures from Texas’ non-partisan Legislative Budget Board show that Perry’s first budget spent $42.3 billion in state funds over two years (2002-03), while  the 2010-11 budget (adjusted for population growth and inflation) spent just $40.1 billion, a 5.2 percent real terms decrease over his first decade as Governor. It’s all here in black and white. Honest. Page 36. There’s tables and charts and everything. Who needs Obi Wan when we’ve got the Legislative Budget Board?

Dog Fight

The gloves are finally coming off in the Republican primary: in a week’s time, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney will appear on the same stage at a Freedom Forum in South Carolina. Romney didn’t hold his punches ahead of that appearance, attacking Perry as a “career politician,” and suggesting that “I have spent more of my life outside of politics, dealing with the real problems in the real economy.”

Of course Perry’s team didn’t waste time either, firing back with the Texas Governor’s experience as a farmer and almost two decades in the military, including thousands of hours flying C-130 transport planes in the Air Force.

Here at RickPerryRolling, we wanted to be absolutely sure that Governor Romney doesn’t have any military experience of his own before we start to gloat about Perry’s military exploits. So, and entirely in the interests of fairness you understand, we performed an exhaustive search of our archives and we came up with evidence that Mitt does have military experience after all:

That’s right folks, Governor Romney once toured the USS John F. Kennedy. Sadly though, we’re pretty sure that’s the closest he gets to actual military experience.

But Romney shouldn’t be too disheartened. The past is the past after all. He doesn’t have military experience. So what? Most of the candidates don’t have any either. Heck, even President Obama doesn’t have military experience. So long as Romney didn’t sign some terrible health care reform legislation in to law that might undermine his conservative credentials, we’re sure he’ll be just fine in a head-to-head with Perry. What’s that you say? He gave Massachusetts a state version of Obamacare? Well in that case, maybe he should start looking for the ejector seat right away…