Sarah Palin Takes Aim At Perry in Iowa (Gucci Gulch is in her crosshairs)

09/04/2011 | Brices Crossroads

[Brices Crossroads]

While watching Sarah Palin's speech yesterday at Indianola, it occurred to me that she is beloved by her supporters and detested and feared by her enemies for at least one common reason: She is an extraordinary political talent, willing and able to call a spade a spade and to do so with a combination of moxie and panache that is both devastating and funny. She represents a clear and present danger both to the GOP Establishment and to the Democrat left, the two sides of the same false coin which has embedded itself in D.C. as the "Permanent Political Class". Her supporters rightly see her as the one candidate with the charisma, bedrock honesty and courage to drain Gucci Gulch on K Street as she drained the fetid Corrupt Bastards Club in Juneau. The permanent political class can only exist on the oxygen supplied by crony capitalists, who "pay to play" (with our money, that is). Palin proposes to blow their cozy, little symbiotic relationship to smithereens. She means it. She has done it before. And it terrifies them.

In her speech, Palin alluded to the phenomenon of politicians who enter, and then cling to office, becoming members of the permanent political class, while proceeding to grow rich at the public trough:

"Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars."

She may or may not have had Governor Rick Perry in mind when she said this, but it is a fact that Perry--who never fails to brandish his humble beginnings as a rural farmer--has become very wealthy over the course of his 27 years in public office. He has had a series of questionable real estate deals with other politicians and with contributors that have netted him millions. His Horseshoe Bay deal, for example, involved State Senator Troy Fraser and two business partners (one who sold the land to Fraser; the other who bought it from Perry) and netted the Governor a cool $823,000 profit in 2007 on only a 300,000 investment in 2001. Then there was the deal in which Perry, while serving as state Agriculture Commissioner, bought 10 acres of undeveloped land in 1993 for $123,000 and sold it the next year to Michael Dell, a computer magnate for $465,000, three times what he paid for it. Interestingly, Michael Toomey, an influential lobbyist actually closed the sale for Perry (who was out of town at the time). Toomey later became Perry's Chief of Staff and, after that, became a lobbyist for Merck where he was instrumental in lobbying Perry to issue the gardasil mandate, which stood to make millions for Merck, while endangering the health of pre-teen Texas girls. And these are just a few of the scores of examples of such shenanigans, which the opposition researchers in the White House are poring over.

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In her speech, Palin did not just attack Obama for his crony capitalism, although her mention of him in this regard portends one key aspect of the campaign she intends to run against him. Merely replacing Obama is not enough, she said, if the gameplan remind the same. She clearly had her GOP opponents, particularly Rick Perry, in mind, when she said:

"Now to be fair, some GOP candidates also raised mammoth amounts of cash, and we need to ask them, too: What, if anything, do their donors expect in return for their “investments”? We need to know this because our country can’t afford more trillion-dollar “thank you” notes to campaign backers. It is an important question, and it cuts to the heart of our problem. And I speak from experience in confronting the corruption and the crony capitalism since starting out in public office 20 years ago. I’ve been out-spent in my campaigns two to one, three to one, five to one. (And, by the way, I don’t play that game either of hiring expert political advisors just so they’ll say something nice about me on TV – if you ever wonder. You know how that game’s played too I’m sure.) But the reason is simple: It’s because like you, I’m not for sale. It’s because we believe in the free market. I believe in the free market, and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now. It’s a root that grows our economic problems. Our unsustainable debt and our high unemployment numbers and a housing market that’s in the tank and a stagnant economy – these are all symptoms."

Notice how she linked crony capitalism to unsustainable debt, high unemployment, a crippled housing market and a stagnant economy, indicating just how vulnerable Obama is to such a connection, given the number of his close aides who benefited from Fannie and Freddie, bailouts and stimulus funds. Leaving aside Perry's own personal history of shady insider deals, he has created similar "funds" which have doled out $633 million to such "start up enterprises" as Home Depot, Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms and Countrywide.

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Perry's slush fund in Texas is classic "pay to play", and Palin called him on it, at least obliquely. If Perry had been in the audience at Indianola, he would have turned three shades of beet red.

Finally, and perhaps most damning of all, is that Perry's history of crony capitalism in Texas has coincided with an unprecedented debt and budget crisis there. Texas' debt is up 184% on his watch, from $13 billion to $37 billion. Texas' budget deficit is $13.4 billion a whopping 31% of the total budget, the fourth largest in America. The chart below shows 32 states with the biggest shortfalls:

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By the way, if you are looking for Alaska on the list, you won't find it. Governor Palin's policies, including ACES and AGIA, as well as her veto pen, left the state in sound financial shape, and it sports a healthy budget surplus of $3.4 billion, plus 12 billion in reserves, and a booming economy, bucking the national trend.

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Up to now, Perry has managed to disguise his gaping deficits through accounting gimmicks and the use of federal stimulus funds he received from... Barack Obama. That's right. In FY 2009, 97% of Texas' 6.6 billion budget shortfall was plugged with stimulus funds from Barack Obama.

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Governor Palin's strategy against Perry is coming into focus. His record of crony capitalism has helped to swell the deficit and deepen the debt crisis in Texas, in contrast to Alaska, which she left in robust fiscal health. To make matters worse, Perry's use of Obama's stimulus funds to close his budget deficit compromises his ability to make the case against federal overspending. Having ballooned Texas' deficits via crony capitalism, Perry accepted federal stimulus funds to cover the shortfall. This is not a narrative for success in November 2012. And Perry is not the candidate to stand up on the debate stage with Obama and make this case.

The nomination of Rick Perry would remove, at a stroke, two very critical issues against Obama: First, the Corruption Issue. The "Chicago Way" does not seem to differ appreciably from the "Austin Way". Every mention of Tony Rezko or Bill Daley or Fannie Mae would generate a retort about Horseshoe Bay, Gardasil and taxpayer subsidies for big Perry campaign contributors,individuals who who contribute to him directly but also corporations like Tyson and Home Depot, who contribute indirectly in the form of large soft money contributions to Perry friendly entities like the Republican Governor's Association which, in turn, cut checks to Perry.

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Second, Perry's use of federal stimulus funds to cover his budget deficits will neuter any attack he might try to mount on Obama's overspending, because it would expose him to the charge of hypocrisy. Any attacks by Perry will lack resonance, since he himself has been a conspicuous part of the two headed hydra of big government, crony capitalism and out of control spending and debt.

Palin will draw a sharp contrast between her dealings with crony capitalists in Juneau, where so many took the perp walk and were hustled off to Club Fed, and Perry's associates, who grew fat and happy during his adminstration. She will point to her cuts in the state budget, ACTUAL cuts, not cuts in the rate of growth, whereby she reduced Governor Murkowski's budget of $11.7 billion in 2007 to $10.57 billion in 2010, a whopping 9.5% cut. Unlike Perry, Palin didn't need Obama's stimulus money to balance her budget (In fact she only accepted 55% of the $930 million Obama offered Alaska), and thus she would not be fettered in attacking the President on the issue of his overspending.

Palin will clearly never be writing any trillion dollar thank you notes to Gucci Gulch, nor will they be cutting any checks to her. Neither will she be issuing any endorsements to J. Rick Perry in the near future. That much is clear. But it sounds like she may be preparing an ultimatum...for Barack Obama.

[Piers-the-Ploughman]

re magic political genius:

Fair question. I think some SP supporters (I am SarahPAC supporter since July 2009) do go overboard at times in her promotion/defense. I think SP’s analysis and “her plan” is spot on, and whether or not she is a political genius, time will tell. I think there is a decent chance she is.

[Piers-the-Ploughman]

criticizing from the sidelines?

suppose she is running and just hasnt announced it?

when other Repubs criticize candidates positions, is that also wrong?

my goodness-—we need to have this, an open honest debate from all our potential leaders, including SP. I guess SP analysis is just too hardball and dirty tricks?

[rjeffries]

Hey, I’d love to see her as President. My problem is electability. She could have been refurbishing her career and improving her image over the past year and hasn’t done so.

If you’re going to throw out stuff like “0% Corporate Tax Rates”, you need to be 100% on your game to defend it because the media will gang up tear you an new a-hole. “Sarah doesn’t think super rich billionaire companies should pay taxes”.

I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest she’s capable of delving deep into policy and convincing people to move to her position. Since resigning as Governor of Alaska, she hasn’t been able to convince people she’s not in over her head. It’s one thing to throw out these ideas (which are great IMO), but you have to have the ability to explain why it would be great and how it would work beyond saying “Oh, it’ll create jobs”.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Not a single one of the deals you presented made him "millions". IN fact, we seem to be talking about 3 deals, the biggest of which was the $780,000 deal which involved a single property which he bought for $315,000 and sold at the height of the market for $1.1 million. That deal was investigated, nothing was found. THe purchase and sale price were fair market price, he didn't get any special offers for buying or selling, the purchase wasn't secret, the sale was public.

Pay to Play -- giving someone money to do what you want. Grass Roots DOnations -- giving money to a candidate who you expect to do what you want.

Every donor gives to a candidate because they expect something back. How many times do we read here at FR "The stupid republicans stabbed us in the back on that vote -- I WANT MY DONATIONS BACK". How is that not "I paid them to do what I want, and then they didn't, so I want a refund?"

That game is a liberal's game, and if we try to play it, they will burn every one of our candidates, because the media will NEVER ONCE label the millions of dollars of union funding for democrats as "crony capitalism", or say it's pay-to-play.

But it's funny to see this attack on the guy who seems to have the lowest net worth of ANY of our candidates.

Mitt Romney - $264 million
Herman Cain -- $18 million
Michelle Bachmann - $1.05 million
Newt Gingrich - $20 million
Jon Huntsmann - $11 million - $74 million
Rick Perry - $1.1 million
Rick Perry - $1 million
Rick Santorum - $2.5 million
Sarah Palin - $12 million

So as you can see, Rick Perry is tied with Michelle Bachmann for the lowest net worth among the announced candidates and Sarah Palin. Going after him for profiting from public service (when he made his money on unrelated real estate deals for which he has the qualification to perform well), when he's 61 years old and has a little over a million in net worth, is silly.

Again, every link I find says 1.1 million, except David Frum who says 2.8 million; the fact-checkers in Texas reported 1.1 million in 2010, is it possible his real estate holdings jumped 1.7 million in 1 year?

Maybe because he has done such a good job in Texas that their economy is coming back. As most of his money is in a blind trust, he has no control of how it makes money, nor can anybody claim he is making money by selling influence. But you could say that he is profiting from his public service -- he's the Governor, and he's made things so good in Texas that he made money in real estate. I don't think that's a bad thing.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

honestly it is at the point where i will write in Palin whether she ends up on the final ballot between Obama (which she will...but just hypothetically speaking.) or not.

i detest wolves in sheep’s clothing (the GOP establishment) more than actual wolves. (the Obama administration)

[CharlesWayneCT]

BTW, people actually spend money. So just because you make $780 thousand in a real estate deal doesn't mean that your net worth goes up by $780 thousand.

First, as investment property, this doesn't fall under exclusions -- he had to pay the long-term capital gains federal tax.

Second, If he took his family on a big vacation to celebrate the sale, he could easily have spent $10,000 or more.

When you are talking about making less than a million dollars, that is within the spending parameters for many people. If he bought a $1 million dollar home with the money, that home may have dropped to $0.5 million, wiping out the entire gain after taxes.

[Piers-the-Ploughman]

fair enough, but the debates havent started, and you are right, the zero corp tax is an idea she had better know how to defend it. I think she will successful enough, there will always be those invincibly ignorant and lazy.

she has already said she would also end corp welfare-—independents and blue collars will love that

i also think the media might give her a pass for awhile. i think much of the msm would love SP cage match against all these R country clubbers, and then the grandaddy of them all Sarah palin against President Bozo. They hate Palin I know but they know that contest will also “get the highest ratings.” So i think they could well promote it

[CondoleezzaProtege]

One can question Palin and her strengths all they want, but I would be weary of doubting the power of Almighty GOD. HIS hand is on her and her life in ways by the likes of which has not been manifested in an American public figure in a long time. Everything about her life and rise to prominence for “such as a time as this” up to this point has GOD’s signature and fingerprints all over it. The woman is not perfect, but she is certainly Spirit-filled and a force of nature with a true destiny and purpose that will not fall subject to the opinions of men.

I also find it so symbolic that she hails from a land as far away and grand as Alaska.

[ken5050]

First, congrats on a superb essay..one of the best posted on FR in a long time..not only do you present a cogent analysis, but you write well..an added bonus.

I'd like to elaborate on your central thesis, based upon my analysis of her speech. I now believe she's running, and will announce after Thanksgiving.

In taking on the establishment, career pols, of BOTH parties, Palin is in effect saying that the supercommittee will FAIL. I believe she's correct in this assumption. And then it will be time for the people to begin to take back their government..and she will be the one to lead the way.

[editor-surveyor]

>> The permanent political class can only exist on the oxygen supplied by crony capitalists, who “pay to play” <<

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They don’t breathe oxygen at all; they’re Anerobic, like Cancer cells always are; they live by fermentation causing political Cachexia in Washington.

[AmericanVictory]

It appears to me that he put too much stock in the assurances of those he knew connected with Merck as they in turn relied on clearance and approval by the FDA. To this day on its web site Merck says that the drug is effective and cleared but warns of possible reactions including very severe ones that can be fatal and states that it should not be used except upon the advice of one's physician after that individual informss himself. If the fatalities and injuries reported on the Internet are correct it seems that Governor Perry ultimately relied too much on the supposed omniscience of the Federal Government, which seems at odds with much of what he says on most issues and did not properly consider, even with opt-out included, the displacement of the proper role of the person's own physician. It does not seem, without being privy to much of what must have led to the decision, to be as sound a decision as one would expect from him. I compare it for example to his decision on a Texas wide border fence, which seems well researhed and thought out and yet is constantly subjected to supposedly being "proof" that he is aganst border security.

It also seems to me that if the reports available on the Internet about 91 fatalities and many other serious adverse effects are accurate then the FDA has not done its job. But it would not be the first time it has clearned a drug when it should have not done so without further investigation being required or has failed to order further testing and consider withdrawal of approval when events have occurred which indicate it fell down on the job.

[AmericanVictory]

When one is biased and has judged without becoming properly informed one is bound not to be impressed with what one has already decided against.

His expression of support for the Ismaili sect of the Aga Khan is a case in point. There are within Islam only a small number of very small sects that are further from Al Qaeda and the Jihadists than the Ismailis. One of our daughter's closest friends, whom she meet during a year of study at Cambridge as a fellow student, is a member of this sect and her family is in Texas and are all about as Americanized and patriotic as one can possibly be.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “It also seems to me that if the reports available on the Internet about 91 fatalities and many other serious adverse effects are accurate then the FDA has not done its job.” <<

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What’s new?

The FDA has always been in the pockets of Big Pharma, and the AMA; they will never do their job.

[Brices Crossroads]

no apology necessary, Charles. I am sure I have been guilty as charged on occasion. LOL

[reasonisfaith]

You know, there are widely varying levels of conviction associated with any given bias. Some are relatively mild, and don’t prevent us from taking a second look at things.

[reasonisfaith]

I wonder what was going through his mind when Perry decided it was okay to give this vaccine to nine year olds.

[txrangerette]

That won’t wash.

She didn’t have to endorse anyone in that race. She could’ve simply avoided it.

Second, she didn’t say she endorsed him because his opponents were so lacking, and stop there.

No, she wrote a highly praising endorsement letter in which, among other gems, she said that Rick Perry “walks the walk of a true conservative”.

What? And now we’re expected to believe that all along she believed he was a crook?

I won’t overlook it, and if she proceeds to pretend such things along this line in the future, I will constantly remind and remind and remind.

If she is nominated of course I will vote for her.

But this is serious loss of credibility to try to spin her out of her strongly expressed support for Perry, whether the attempted spin is by her or whether by her supporters.

The words she used on his behalf do not allow for this spin.

[txrangerette]

You don’t really want to know what went through his mind, and they weren’t nine year olds.

You’re too much enjoying making up what was in his mind, hoping to destroy him.

No, you don’t really want to know.

[reasonisfaith]

I simply meant why would he go along with it.

[txrangerette]

Palin in the fray | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/02/palin_2012_ladies_against_wome

Money quote, among other gems about Perry: “He walks the walk of a true conservative”.

But she actually believed he was a crook when she wrote that?

Uh huh.

Right.