Still Paw-lenty to choose from

         Pawlenty is out and plenty of Texas swagger is in.
     It didn’t take long for that wet noodle Tim Pawlenty to drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
     He placed a distant third in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday.
     The straw poll was the last straw for T-Paw.
     Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was the winner of the straw poll, but not by that big of a margain over second place finisher Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
     A filly beat a nag in this particular horse race.
     Bachmann was quick out of the gate, but taking the shine off her crown was Mr. Giddy-Up himself, Texas Gov. Rick “I feel the need to secede” Perry, who officially entered the GOP horse race the same day the straw poll was conducted.
     Perry, who made his announcement Saturday in the Cradle of the Confederacy, South Carolina, had one memorable line: “Page one of getting America back to work is giving a pink slip to the current residents of the White House.”
    Still, there are two words that might suit his candidacy: “Too soon.”
     Perry sounds too much like George W. Bush (OK, he speaks in complete sentences), and even in this economy, that Texas way of runnin’ thangs might not sell in 2012. The W. way of running the country into the ground is still being felt.
     In fact, Texas should become the new Massachusetts. Presidential politics-wise.
     Republicans successfully defeated two Democratic presidential candidates from Massachusetts —– Michael “Tank Boy” Dukakis and John “I was for it before I was against it” Kerry —- by painting them as the liberal wimps they were.
     Democrats now have to paint Perry as a Texan who will get us into unnecessary wars, like Daddy Bush and his made-for-TV shock and awe of Baghdad in 1991 and Junior Bush, the worst president in our lifetime, who gave us the Iraq war that has cost billions of dollars and drained the economy.
     Of course, Democrats will also have to give bad cred to another Texan who got us into an unnecessary war —- Lyndon Baines Johnson, who gave us Vietnam and lived to regret it.
     W. has no such remorse.
     And Democrats can turn around that wimpy Dems from Massachusetts theory by pointing to the billionaire Mitt Romney as the GOP alternative to Kerry.
     Romney already has the flip-flopping down pat.
     Meanwhile, Bachmann made the rounds on news talk shows Sunday.
     Bachmann kept on message: Obama bad; Obama to blame for everything; debt ceiling raised bad; jobless benefits bad, can’t afford them, but let the wealthiest in America be free from paying as much or more in taxes as us poor folk.
     Credit Bachmann for at least entering the lion’s den that isn’t the safe harbor that’s Fox News. Princess Photo-Op Palin could never man-up and do it. She was in Iowa on Saturday, because the evangelicals have got to have their celebrity sighting.
     Bachmann glossed over the social issues questions that got her on the controversial conservative play list, like gay marriage and that quote from her a few years back about women being submissive to their husbands. On that one, she said in her family submission is the same as respect.
     Ya, that’s why the great Aretha Franklin had a hit with S-U-B-M-I-S-S-I-O-N.
     Bachmann shows she’s out of the mainstream on this one. She knows better. She’s well aware that men are submissive to women.
     When’s the last time a husband gave a “honey-do” list to his wife, and lived to live it down?
     Guys, did you have to be dragged to see “The Help” this weekend at the movies, or did you get your choice and make “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” that all-important date movie?
     Check every TV commercial geared toward families and see who is presented as the submissive one.
     And do you really think for a moment that Marcus Bachmann isn’t submissive to his Tasmanian devil of a wife? He even picks out her wardrobe. Probably picks it up for her, too.
     Bachmann may have be right about one thing, though, social issues that she speaks out on, mostly in absurd terms, aren’t the issues people are going to be concerned about.
     Unless you work for MSNBC and champion everything Bachmann is against.
     The main issue in next year’s election will be jobs. Or as smarmy cable TV anchors refer to them, j-o-bees.
     That is unless a miracle happens and the economy turns around and unemployment drops below 8 percent.
     Then you’ll hear Bachmann —- who will be Perry’s running mate (Perry & Scary) — start yakety-yakking about gay marriage bad because it promotes submissiveness.
     And there will still be fools who’ll respect her for taking that stand.