Likely presidential candidate Rick Perry, governor of Texas, hurt the Christian conservatives' feelings last week when he said about gay marriage in New York, "That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me. That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business." That was courageous of him! But now it's all over, and he suddenly supports a federal marriage amendment.

My personal favorite way to remember how far to the right the Republican party has move in only a few years is this 2008 Al Gore-funded commercial in which Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi urge the country to address climate change.

It's fun to watch Tim "Two Percent" Pawlenty hatch a new lame scheme each week to try to get anyone interested in his tries-too-hard presidential campaign.

While some hedge funders appear to be sticking by President Obama, mostly because he ate a fancy meal with them, others are still desperately searching for a viable Republican alternative who won't even occasionally use semi-mean language in public about the lords of high finance. That's why they're still trying to convince New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run, because he only says mean things about all middle class people, all the time.

America's favorite presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, is the subject of what appears to be a hit piece today! Various former aides tell the Daily Caller that she suffers from "stress-induced medical episodes" that we on Planet Earth know as "migraines." But not just any migraines! Destructive, hospitalizing migraines that occur about once a week and can leave her "incapacitated" for days at a time. Ouch! Sounds miserable. But should it matter, for our electoral purposes?

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer will officially declare his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, from New Hampshire. He raised a whopping $41,000 last quarter! He is not expected to win anything, ever.

It's probably not a good idea for us to step into the fray of unresolvable intra-wingnut disputes, but this clip from the Sunday version of Fox News' illiterate dementia variety hour, Fox & Friends, excellently displays the social conservatives' main problem with the presidential candidacy of one Willard "Mittens" Romney: He's a Mormon, which the social cons do not merely consider a fake form of Christianity, but not a form of Christianity at all.

So, campaign finance! Perhaps in need of some constitutional reform, hmm? But for now, the rules of the game for presidential campaigns are that you call all of your rich friends and have them bundle donations from their rich friends, "sometimes" in exchange for access or favors for everyone in this elaborate network of rich friends. So who's on the just-released Obama bundler list?

Rep. Michele Bachmann's "psychologist" husband, Marcus Bachmann, is apparently starting to feel like a liability to his wife's political prospects. Either that, or he just likes talking to the papers! Because he's now going on the record to defend his Christian counseling business against charges of being anti-gay.

Staffless, broke anachronism Newt Gingrich is still running for president, hoping in vain that his campaign can save face and survive until Labor Day. Is there any good news for Gingrich, for whom there hasn't been any in at least 16 miserable years? Yes! Many people follow him on Twitter.

Texas congressman, libertaria agitator, and Internet deity Ron Paul has decided to wrap up his 12-term legacy of automatic "no" votes to every single bill. He will not run for his House seat in the next election. Good for him! If he stayed around much longer, he'd run the risk of becoming a bitter old crank.

A long-lost gospel album that presidential candidate Herman Cain to have recorded in 1996 has hit the Internet. This could prove to be Julian Assange's most consequential leak yet! Or maybe it was just an upload from a Daily Caller blogger. In any event, this is a great discovery for rare music collectors who've spent years, combing through seven continents, looking for this gem — a magnum opus which settles every doubt you ever had about the ability of music to inspire.

Scientists—like, actual scientists, with real degrees and a belief in the scientific method—agree that people do not choose their sexual orientation. Someone should tell Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty! Because he seems to think that "the science in that regard is in dispute."

Were Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run for president, the consensus take goes, how would he ever distance himself from his gubernatorial predecessor, disgraced former president George W. Bush? They're both "Texas cowboys" who babble on like happy drunks, all the time, so Perry might face the problem of "reminding" voters of Bush. Should Perry, then, work to "distance" himself from Bush, even if this hurts the ex-president's feelings?

You know why Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination for president? Because he has the most money, the end.

Few rituals these past couple of years have been more fruitless and illogical than pretending that Barack Obama will pick a new vice presidential candidate for 2012, rested on the notion that such a move would in any way be helpful. Is Joe Biden, in any meaningful sense, a political liability for Barack Obama? Would the switch from one centrist Democrat to another really trick the broad middle of America's electorate into forgetting about our shitty economy?

Presidential pizza man candidate Herman Cain has been having a mini-crisis amid his staffers — nowhere near the calamitous hilarity that's befallen Newt Gingrich, but bad enough for a couple of staffers in important states to quit their posts. What gives? Is the seat padding aboard the Cain Train a bit rough on the buttocks? For now, let's just blame the gays.

The current field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates is pretty boring. You've got several grouchy old men, a pizza magnate, and a walking anal sex joke. So why not a white supremacist? Sure, the GOP has noted xenophobes like Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, but they lack the panache of an openly racist candidate. But that could soon change, as 1990s throwback David Duke prepares to embark on a tour of 26 states to feel out his chances of putting the "white" back in the White House.

Everyone welcome Thad McCotter to the race for the Republican presidential nomination! Who? you ask. Well, according to our notes, McCotter is a... congressman from... Michigan who, let's see, is supposed to be sort of funny? (According to Andrew Breitbart McCotter is "blunt, sarcastic, pop-culture-savvy, constitutionally sound and an authentic voice.") Also, he looks vaguely like my AP US History teacher, so he'll definitely have the Princeton High School class of 2003 vote locked. Oh, and the issues! McCotter's "themes" are: "The challenge of globalization, the war for freedom against terrorists, the rise of Communist China and whether moral relativism erodes a nation built on self-evident truth." McCotter announced his bid for the presidency yesterday at the "WAAM Freedom Fest," where he also played guitar. [Detroit Free Press]

What this 2012 presidential race needs — what America needs, really — is another wiseass Tea Party conservative mid-level congressman with niche appeal to further dilute the far right primary vote and effectively hand the nomination over to Mitt Romney. Fortunately it looks like five-time Michigan Rep. Thad McCotter will be that much needed extra spoiler. He's in it, and he's in it to win it!