Posted on 09/04/2011 12:42:11 PM PDT by 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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sarah Palin on Stimulus for Alaska:
Sarah Palin: "On the whole these things that are good for the state we will appreciate those dollars coming as an addition to our economy, certainly the construction projects we are still looking forward to those because those are what actually create the jobs."
She also opposed parts of the stimulus program:
Sarah Palin: "I beg to differ with the premise of this economic stimulus package that it, as a whole, stimulates the economy when you look at the programs that are entailed in this economic stimulus package, the programs that could end up costing a state so much more at the end of the day, those don’t necessarily stimulate the economy."
Her ACES program didn't "tax the hell" out of oil companies, it corrected a previous program that was too generous.
And how Barack Abyss Obaama bought the house he lived in in Chicago prior to usurping Sarah Palin's future residence in DC?
Cheers!
Excellent recitation of the problems Rick Perry faces and the why so many conservatives support Sarah Palin. Sure to be a 'hot' thread. Palin is the Washington D.C. game-changer and as you succinctly point out, neither the Obama administration, the Democrats or the Republican establishment want any part of that. They have their profitable scam firmly in place and fear Sarah Palin ruining it for them. She can - and will - and both the Democrats and the GOP 'elites' know it. Palins' authenticity, integrity and boldness never cease to amaze and impress me. She is the right person at the right time and all the petty bickering here and elsewhere will eventually come to nothing when she announces her candidacy and defeats Barack Obama in 2012.
Besides ending taxes on corporations, I think if she came out for replacing taxpayer-funded Federal retirements with 401Ks only, she’d really get even greater support. People I have talked with have had it with this self-appointed elite and have been in favor of doing away with that Big Draw to stay in politics. Right now they have insulated themselves from the results of their laws - if they had to risk their retirements as we do, they’d think twice, or maybe even READ a law before they passed it.
The sad part is that the only way it would pass is to stiff the Newbies, but it’s a start.
Palin threw cold water on the members of the mainstream media and the Republican and conservative establishments .....’who erroneously and ignorantly assumed she was going to endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry.’...... While Palin directly attacked Obama by name, she cleverly and implictly attacked Perry, who has been accused by his critics of being a crony capitalist who engaged in “pay for play” politics.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45964
I’d heard he had real estate deals and the generalities of the other issues, but first time seeing these specifics.
Does not engender confidence.
Funny that, I thought Sarah attacked 0bama and Biden.
For a career politician, Biden has a real nice home
The truth.
What pundits should be talking about when it comes to Palin
Palin tossed out the corruption-ridden, structurally-flawed Petroleum Profits Tax of the Murkowski administration and put forth ACES (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share), which incentivized development while seeing to it that Alaskans — resource owners as per the Alaska Constitution — would receive “A CLEAR and EQUITABLE SHARE (ACES) of the value of their commonly-owned oil and gas.” The result? Alaska was left with a $12 billion surplus. Also, as reported at Big Government, “The number of oil companies filing with the Alaska Department of Revenue has doubled, indicating that competition has indeed increased. Alaska has the second most business friendly tax set-up — up two spots since the passage of ACES. Additionally, a report from Governor Parnell’s Department of Revenue indicated that 2009 yielded a record high in oil jobs.”
“Playing devil’s advocate, won’t some s*it disturber from the media ask Governor Palin after she enters the race, if you feel this way about Rick Perry and crony capitalism, why did you endorse him for Governor of Texas?”
Perhaps. But the level of scrutiny for President is so much greater. Palin can truthfully say that she didn’t vet him to the extent that he is now being vetted and that in any case she judges him better than his opposition, Kay Bailey Hutchison, prochoice RINO, and the truther Deb Medina.
The fact that one is the best candidate for dog catcher does not make one the best candidate for President.
BC, I wanted to thank you for including this in your article. She may well want to target Perry, and if she does, I'm sure she will be able to say his name directly because she is not shy at calling people out. Until then, it's all speculation.
As Bill Clinton says about Rick Perry “It is a handsome rogue.” Texas might not be so enamored, but the rest of the country has a school girl crush on this big-talking, cowboy boot wearing, handsome politician - the only one of the bunch that could throw on a top hat and a pair of jeans and not look like a city slicker. Whether Palin runs or not, focusing on why his Texas record is much worse than you think comes after Labor Day and the race begins to settle into a more serious phase.
Although I do hope that voters wake up soon. When I think of our choices in 2012, as being Obama or Perry, I see nothing but gloom & doom for this nation.
If Mao were running against Obama, I’d vote for Mao. I don’t care what anyone has to say about anyone running against the Zero, especially someone not declared.
So, what is the upshot here if Palin does not run? We beat the tar out of Perry and Romney? Clearly Backman is not ready for prime time and look at the rest of the field...Cain has some possibilities but was woefully unprepared in his first debate about foreign items; Santorum could not win his Senate race in Pa; Gingrich has more pimples than a teenaged chocolate abuser, and Huntsman is the darling of the MSM for the GOP. Rubio has taken himself out more than once and the straight talk RINO from NJ is exactly that but he says he is not running either.
I have. Are there any Tony Rezkos in Perry’s past?
Re-read the contents of the original posting and follow the links.
Cheers!
I’m sorry. If she was “extraordinary politically talented” she would have found someway over the past year to raise her approvals to a level which would give some of us confidence she could beat Obama in November.
My question to Palin supporters is, why hasn’t she been able to do that, and where do you get the confidence going forward that she can do that? The left launched another round of ridicule at her this morning on the Sunday Morning Shows, and she hasn’t shown the ability to fight back.
I’d love to vote for her and be the nominee and be the President. But I don’t see this “magic political genius” that everybody else does where she’s going to start campaigning, and the media is going to melt and stop ripping her to shreds.
Sound like the PAC was right.
Thanks for the great post Brice. I am a Palin supporter to be sure but know little about Gov. Perry. I will use your excellent post and others from well informed Freepers to “vet” the Texas Governor against other candidates. When Governor Palin “officially” enters the race, I’ll need some popcorn and a soft chair to watch the show!
“Playing devil’s advocate, won’t some s*it disturber from the media ask Governor Palin after she enters the race, if you feel this way about Rick Perry and crony capitalism, why did you endorse him for Governor of Texas?”
____________________________________________________________
Easy...
“I never mentioned Gov Perry in that speech...”
Bookmarked!
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