Life-and-Death Election, 2012

Unless Mitt Romney (or Jeb Bush) stops the Rick Perry steamroller, we are heading toward a referendum on the value of human life next year.

When Sarah Palin invented death panels to bash health care reform two years ago, with perfect pitch for political devastation, she planted a seed that has now flowered in the Tea Party frontrunner, who is being cheered for multiple executions in Texas by crowds who are also thrilled by the prospect of letting uninsured young people die.

How did Hope and Change so quickly morph into hate and fear? The confluence of a sinking economy, an African-American president and the Rupert Murdoching of the media? Too many signs point to the possibility that even a mild economic upturn might not be enough to a keep a cardboard cutout of a Texan from evicting Barack Obama from the White House.

Rick Perry won his first political race for agriculture commissioner running against a rule requiring farmers to get their workers out of the fields before they sprayed pesticide on them. Now, firing guns in the air at rallies, he presides over a state with more executions and less health insurance than any in the union.

As the Tea Party celebrates Constitution Day, one official brags about its schools program: “We go right back to the founders when it comes to the Constitution. The material we’re bringing in is very historical, there’s no agenda in either direction.”

It’s also historical that the founders didn’t let women vote and kept a whole race of people as slaves, but they tried to limit government and keep taxes down, and that seems to be enough for Tea Party patriots.

Unless something changes between now and next fall, Barack Obama faces a reelection fight not only against an ideological caricature but to preserve Social Security, Medicare and everything else life-affirming in American history for over a century.