Teabagging Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has worked himself into quite a hysteria of late. First, talking about seceding from the union because, well, because apparently Perry feels he needs to buck up his butch bona fides. And now, suggesting that the solution to the Republican party’s woes is to become even more conservative.

“We’ve been watching this liberal love fest that has taken over our country for about a year now,” he said, “and we need to take back our country.” Both governors stressed that the Republican Party should not become more moderate as a way to regain power in Washington. “If you look at this notion of what we are really about I would liken the Republican Party to nothing more than a brand in business,” Sanford said. When great businesses face down times, Sanford explained, “they don’t expand the tent…they go back to what made those companies great.” “I don’t think it is in the Republican Party’s best interest as some people have said to tack to the center,” Perry said. “I don’t make any apologies to anybody about being a true-blue conservative.”

A few points. First off, I’m not sure how they teach math down in Texas, but in the north we count January to May, the amount of time since a “liberal” took over the White House, as four months, not twelve months. But putting that aside, what we’re seeing here is an attempt to by Perry to rejuvenate his conservative credentials. Perry, like Charlie Crist in Florida, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, and Aaron Schock in Illinois, have all been under some pressure to prove their manliness in a party that doesn’t like clouds over its future stars. Perry must figure that the more red meat he throws to the party faithful, the less they’ll remember those other rumored scandals.

The irony is that Perry is jumping in bed with the wrong wing of the GOP. Moderate Republicans wouldn’t care if the rumors about Perry were true, while the conservative base of the GOP would care even if they weren’t.