Hey, look! Rick Perry is back on Brokeback Mountain—he changed jackets, though—and now he's talking about Washington D.C.'s "political correctness." Weirdly, the examples he uses (inappropriate relationships between senators and lobbyists, bankrupting Social Security) have nothing to do with political correctness. So what's going on, here?

"You and I know it's true," Perry says near the end of the ad, "but not politically correct." This is about as dog-whistle-y as politics get: Perry is making a direct case to poor white folks who think that a multicultural America is a sick America, that the fight for gay marriage is more about annoying straight people than giving a basic human right to a minority, that Christianity is the only religion that matters, that women shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the same rights as men. Political correctness has become a code word for people who want America to return to a time that never was, where the racism flows unchecked, women happily stay in the kitchen, and Christianity reigns over all.

It's this simple: Perry is trying to become the new David Duke. Happily, I don't think there are enough outright bigots in the Republican Party to hand him a victory, although I do expect his poll numbers to see a fair-sized bounce now that he's made a pretty overt plea to bigots everywhere for their support.