YNOT – Rick Perry, you’re a wanted man. On Thursday, porn magnate Larry Flynt offered a $1 million bounty for proof of “an illicit sexual liaison” involving the professional hair products model, Tea Party darling and presidential candidate.
Perry, less than one year into his third full term as governor of Texas, is among the farthest right of the far-right Republican primary slate. A much-ballyhooed champion of small government and big business, Republican and Democrat strategists alike seem to be rushing to poke holes in Perry’s self-avowed status as a superhero of jobs creation, advocate for “the average American” and clean-as-a-whistle, southern-fried man’s man.
It’s all hogwash, according to Flynt … particularly the squeaky clean, über-fundamentalist-Christian façade. Somebody’s got the goods on Perry’s backroom sexual antics, and Flynt is willing to pay to expose the cornpone Texan as the same sort of hypocrite a number of his political brethren have turned out to be in recent years.
And why not? Flynt has the spare change. His Los Angeles-based Larry Flynt Productions — parent company of Hustler magazine, which famously embarrassed Jerry Falwell with a scathing satirical piece, and then embarrassed the evangelist again by defeating a court challenge to Hustler’s right to publish such filth — already has run full-page ads condemning Perry in The Onion and the Austin Chronicle. The latter is an alternative newspaper published right in Perry’s own backyard.
“Have you had a gay or straight sexual encounter with Governor Rick Perry?” one recent ad asked. “Can you provide documented evidence of illicit sexual or intimate relations with the governor? Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine will pay you up to $1 million if we choose to publish your verified story and use your material.”
Like the people he pursues, Flynt is no stranger to political controversy or shameless pandering. Unlike his quarry, however, Flynt is up-front about his objective: Holier-than-thou attitudes piss him off, and he’s not inclined to allow hate-mongering demagogues to pull the wool over voters’ eyes. His tactics have met with mixed success.
“I’ve been doing this for 35 years,” Flynt told Reuters of his compulsion to uncover and reveal the peccadilloes public figures least want uncovered and revealed. “We’ve found running these ads [like the ones in The Onion and the Austin Chronicle] were very successful in finding sources to come forward.”
Perry, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann [R-Minn.] are considered the current frontrunners in the GOP presidential primary race. A USA Today/Gallup poll released earlier this week showed Perry slightly in the lead with 31 percent of the potential vote — which, coincidentally, is about the same percentage of the vote that reinstalled him in the Texas governor’s mansion in 2010.
