Yeah? Tell us why... is he a RINO too?
“but I hate Rick Perry.
Yeah? Tell us why... is he a RINO too?”
We in Texas refer to him Rick “good hair” Perry as in John Edwards’s hair.
I voted against the RINO last election. He is a lying phony!
Perry insisted that all girls get inoculated against HPV, an STD, before they could attend 7th grade. Talk about liberal, big government!
In 2004 I was a delegate to the McLennan County Republican Convention. Understand, I've been involved in Republican politics for quite a few years; not as an insider, but as a delegate to the state convention and working on the platform, etc. A lot of my time has been spent trying to keep the Reagan coalition of moderates, libertarians, country club Republicans and social conservatives together. We'd done pretty well, too. Perry took 58% of the vote in his first run at governor.
At the opening of the convention, the county chair said that Perry had sent a spokesman with a special message for the convention. I was expecting the usual rah, rah, work together speech. This guy gets up and tells us that the Republican party is open to new ideas, and if we're single issue people who can't accept people who disagree with us being part of the party to get out. "The Republicans don't need or want you" were his exact words. I got up, waved at him and walked out. Lots of people were staring at me, but nobody else left.
Perry then started pushing the "Trans-Texas Corridor," a massive nearly one mile wide roadway from (you guessed it) Mexico through the US into Canada. Actual information about the corridor is scant, but propaganda is rampant. I do know that some contractors are being paid to submit losing bids (the main contract was won by a Spanish company.) Although it's supposed to be a private roadway, farms and other property will be taken by the state through imminent domain. Both the Republican and Democratic state platforms oppose the corridor, but Perry has been able to push it through so far without a legislative vote. Although it's supposedly private, the Texas Department of Transportation is spending millions to promote it.
The small farmers and ranchers hate the corridor. What should be solid Republican territory is plastered with signs that say, "No trespassing: Especially by Rick Perry." I didn't see a single sign for Perry in small towns during the last election.
Citizens of Houston hate Perry because all the Katrina refugees have come in and crime has gone through the roof. Perry invited them in, got the headlines, then walked away and left apartment owners with people they can't evict who aren't paying rent and are turning their properties into demilitarized zones.
After Merck donated $50,000 to a fundraiser Perry chaired, he attempted to mandate all 7th grade girls in Texas get a Gardasil vaccination (Merck exclusively manufactures the drug.)
I teach at a community college in Texas, and under the arrangements of the original community college plan in Texas, the communities built the college facilities, and the state was to fund instructor salaries. After the last legislative session, Perry pocket-vetoed the bill authorizing insurance for teachers. He claimed it was not part of the original pact, but he had signed similar legislation many previous years, and if he believed it was a problem he could have easily brought it up during the legislative session. He didn't. This caught both Republican and Democrat legislators flat-footed, as he didn't even consult his own party before doing it.
Perry has managed to turn one of the most conservative states in the country against him personally, and Republicans in general. He only took 38% in the last election, and won solely because the anti-Perry vote was split between Carol Strayhorn, Kinky Friedman, and the Democrat, whom nobody even knew.
Oh, and Perry is a classic Rino. He started out as a Democrat and became a Republican when Democrats became so unpopular they couldn't win an election in Texas. His politics haven't changed at at all. His reaction to dropping to 38% was, "I got 38% of the vote, but I've got all the power."
No, I'm *NOT* saying "I'll eat my tin-foil hat" because I don't have one.
But I will start watching developments a little more closely.
Cheers!