It’s tempting to compare the new darling of the Republican Party with former U.S. president George W. Bush. After all, aren’t they both from Texas? Both governors of the Lone Star State? And wasn’t Rick Perry Bush’s lieutenant governor? And doesn’t the cattle ranching fifth-generation Texan match the “cowboy” image that W projected?

But Perry is not Bush.

He is much worse. Frighteningly worse.

This is a career politician who is totally loyal to Big Business, who does not even pretend to have compassion for the poor, who seethes at the tax code not because it favors the rich so blatantly but because it does not penalize the working poor as much as he would like. He has written that Social Security is unconstitutional and he would eliminate Medicare in a heartbeat.

As governor of Texas, Perry claims to have wrought a miracle by bringing jobs to the state. The jobs? Mostly minimum-wage positions created by the oil companies’ prosperity and by spending on America’s pernicious wars. Texas is home to a nest of “merchants of death” who grow fat by building bombs and bullets and sending young Americans to die or be maimed in futile wars.

Naturally, the former U.S. Air Force captain is aggressively in favor of more – not less – military spending.

Despite the oil companies and the military-industrial complex, Texas has an unemployment rate above 8 percent. And, not surprisingly, it boasts one of the biggest gaps between rich and poor in the nation.

In short, Perry would be the type of president that gives people like me nightmares.

And you haven’t heard the most frightening  stuff yet.

This pistol-packing yokel proclaims himself a prophet chosen by God to save America!

His candidacy was prompted by the right-wing-crazy New Apostolic Reformation movement, which claims to be a forerunner to the Rapture prophesied in the Book of Revelation.

I know it’s hard to believe, but in the United States of America, in the year 2011, in the great state of Texas, there is a significant political force based on absurdly misunderstood prophesies of the End Times. And these “new apostles” have picked Perry as their man.

Now, I would think him more fitting in the role of Revelation’s Beast (illustration above,left) but – like Michele Bachmann – he appears convinced that he’s been chosen to do God’s work.

Could these two be running mates in 2012 (photos above, right)? Could they win the White House back for Republicans?

God protect us from such a terrifying fate.