Chris Matthews didn't mince words on his Friday show when it came to the newest entrant into the GOP presidential race.
Rick Perry formally entered the 2012 campaign on Saturday, but everyone knew that he was running days before. On Friday's "Hardball," Matthews made it clear that he doesn't think much of the Texas governor. As he watched the footage MSNBC was playing of Perry, Matthews openly mocked him--and his Texas ways.
"He looks like a clown," Matthews said. "He dresses very fancy. There's something about the way that he puts himself together that doesn't look authentic. He looks like, I don't know, a wax figure pretending to be governor. There's something about him that doesn't add up to me. Maybe it's this Texas B.S., this boots and tuxedo thing they do down there. Why does it work? Outside of Texas it doesn't travel very well."
Matthews also criticized Perry for mangling the history of Texas' relationship with the rest of the U.S. Matthews said that, unlike what Perry has claimed, Texas never had any clause in its founding documents that allowed it to secede from America. He wondered whether Perry was being "deliberately ignorant" in his telling of the state's history.
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