Posted on 05/27/2011 9:01:05 PM PDT by smoothsailing
Published May 27, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Maybe Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he’s decided to test the waters on a presidential run just because he’s feels left out.
For all the attention paid to the presidential possibilities of two members of the House (Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann) and a reality show host (you know who), you’d never know that the Republicans had on their bench the three-term governor of the state with the nation’s best economy and the largest Republican population.
But for some reason, when Perry told people he wasn’t running, reporters believed him. If Chris Christie even flies over Iowa, the blogosphere goes into meltdown mode, but the political press for some reason mostly took Perry at his word.
It seems strange that they would have.
Perry, who has been governor for more than a decade, is a favorite of the Tea Party movement for his tough stands on state sovereignty, border security, taxes and gun rights. Anybody who packs heat when he jogs so he can blow away coyotes that mess with his Labrador retriever and hangs out with Ted Nugent at a Tax Day rally is going to have serious street cred with the Republican base.
As the Perry talk heats up, these primary election positives will be reinforced by liberals who find his Texas-fried politics to be repellant. Every time Democratic cable news talkers remind viewers that Perry once warned that Texas might secede from the union if Washington kept piling on new federal powers, somewhere in Iowa or South Carolina a Republican primary voter thinks, “Not bad.” When Perry gets chided for declining photo-ops with President Obama on visits to the state, somewhere in New Hampshire a guy...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Thanks all you guys for agreeing with my Anti-Perry comments, I almost feel like putting together a ping list, but BEWARE...
I went against Perry in the past, after he had enough time to get his Astroturfers in place. This was around 5 years ago and he was pushing, BIG-TIME, his scheme to essentially privatize our freeways. He had sneaked through the enabling legislation early in his governorship when people weren’t really paying attention or where simply giving him the benefit of the doubt, but as more and more people saw what this meant to freedom of movement and property rights, we had a near civil war in this state. But was VERY HARD to stop him...only after the legislature really heard it from the public were they able to go against him and tell him that it was over, did he throw in the towel. You can look it up, it was called “The Trans-Texas Corridor” and we had vicious debates on it back then and there were websites dedicated to killing it (such as “Corridor Watch”). There was absolutely no public support and there were disasters with these types of arrangements scattered around North America. And it was corrupt as hell here. The person who Perry put in power to run the state department of transportation (thankfully dead now) had just been a lobbyist for Cintra, the Spanish company looking to make hundreds of billions of dollars (over the decades) on this scheme. There was some other revolving door stuff like that. The major newspapers here didn’t seem to have a problem at all with it...it was surreal. They normally go after Republicans, but they’ve protected him like I’ve never seen for a Republican.
Only towards the end of our debates here did I realize that some of the people that I was arguing with must have been out of his office. How did I know? You never know for sure, but these people were nasty as hell, had no facts, and simply could not be moved. But what really convinced me was that they simply dropped off of FreeRepublic once the debate was lost, and they didn’t post on many other topics when they were out there.
So I warn you...once Perry gets his machine oiled-up, be ready and ALWAYS REMEMBER that you are trying to convince the lurkers and others of your points, not the Perry operatives who are paid to treat you like trash.
Oh, my. Now you resort to foul language, but you try to disguise it with an acronym. Such flaming liberal juvenility.
Interesting. You know that if they were here before, they’re here now.
You were wrong about how I feel and your apology is very much appreciated and absolutely accepted, FRiend!
Yes, I live in Tarrant County and my assessed value did go down. My property taxes were over $6500 in 2004 and are now around $5000-ish.
Perry has been re-elected in Texas time and again because he has been the lesser douche in each campaign.
Perry will only run if that is the case. If Palin jumps in Perry won’t run because he’d have to work too hard. But, if it comes down to Perry and several lsers like Ron Paul* then Perry will jump in. He’d be the lesser douche again.
* I worked on Ron Paul’s early campaigns as a kid. He is not electable. Mainly because he starts sounding wacky when under a little pressure. He is too damn old too.
My referenced article said no rainy day fund money was used. Yours said it was. I don’t know which is correct. I’ll look it up.
But to be clear, I don’t deny that accounting tactics were used. Of course they’d have to be.
Either way, I thought it was significant that we cut spending for the first time in 50 years.
Agreed on Dewy.
I tend to think if we keep nit-picking we will end up with more of what we already have. After every candidate suggested, we get the inevitable, “well but...”
We are going to “but” ourselves right back into four more years of the one and completely lose our country. There is no candidate that walks on water. I disapproved of some of the things Ronald Reagan did while in office, although I consider him the greatest President in my lifetime and would clone him in a heartbeat if it were possible.
The LT gov has more power in the legislature than the gov does. It sucks, but that is the truth.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said.
Your article is correct. They used $3.2b of the $9.7b rain day fund.
I don’t know how much Medicaid and school funding was gimmicked out. That should be offset against the alleged spending cut because it is really spending in the next biennium. If you find anything on that, I’d be interested.
The budget could have been worse, but I had expected something better with such large R majorities. Caving to the TSA and then the illegal lobby on sanctuary cities are additional sore points.
A decline in property values is going to come back and kick Tarrant county residents in the butt one way or the other. Sad, but true. Taxpayers cannot win.
Laid off teachers didn’t reduce your taxes. In fact, if they don’t find work (because no school district is hiring), property values may decline further and taxes will rise to make up the difference.
My comment when someone suggests that Perry would make a good Prez usually starts with “Noooooooo!”.
I would be very surprised if he actually runs. I think he likes being considered candidadential, but I think there may be a bit too much baggage for him to run.
“The LT gov has more power in the legislature than the gov does. It sucks, but that is the truth. “
The key thing is that Perry didn’t lead...he LET the LT control things. They are the SAME PARTY...Dewhurst would have listened...if given something to listen to.
Perry is a RINO plain and simple. He’s a good conservative when he’s running for office, but thats about it. Google Perry and Arizona and see what you find.
We call him Governor Good Hair.
Did Perry lobby behind the scenes for Joe Straus to continue to be the Speaker of the House? I'm serious -- I do not know if he did or not. The House members themselves vote on who is the Speaker. Perry can't veto their decision on Speaker.
Texas has a weak governor system instituted many, many years ago. From Link 1, paragraph breaks mine:
Due to perceived abuses during Reconstruction by Governor E.J. Davis, the Texas Constitution provides for a weak governor with little formal power. The governor had a two-year term until the constitution was amended in the 1970s, changing the term to four years. There is no limit on the number of terms a governor can serve.
The governor's appointive and executive powers are limited by the plural executive, which forces the governor to share the running of the executive branch with independently elected department and agency heads. Unlike the president and governors in some states, the Texas governor has very limited removal powers. The governor has very little budgetary power in the formation, development, and execution stages. However, the governor's item veto powers over the state budget can have an impact on the final budget signed into law.
It is in the legislative area that the Texas governor possesses the most significant powers. The governor's veto is rarely overridden due to the short biennial legislative session, and the governor does have the power to set the agenda for any special sessions. Both of these powers can be used as bargaining tools.
Because of a misuse of the pardon power by Governor Miriam Ferguson, the governor's judicial powers are limited today. Comparing the Texas governor to the other 49 on four indexes of power--tenure of office, appointive powers, budgetary powers, and veto powers, finds that Texas governor is comparatively weak in formal powers. Only in the areas of tenure and veto authority does the Texas governor rank strong.
As a result of the few formal powers, the informal powers determine how successful the Texas governor is. The governor's lack of formal power makes the job of governing Texas--a large, diverse, economically important state--extremely challenging. Although current and future problems seem to cry out for stronger and more effective leadership from the governor's mansion, the traditionalistic/individualistic political culture of the state makes it unlikely that the necessary changes will be made to significantly increase the powers of the Texas governor.
Let's look at some news items about Perry.
Here is an article (from the anti-Perry Houston Chronicle no less) where Perry makes statements against what Straus is endorsing re the state budget: Link 2. Perry is advocating for less use of the rainy day fund than what Straus did. The article basically says that Perry's statements left the House leadership "no cover" and earlier that he had lobbied against using so much of the rainy day fund to cover budget shortfalls as the legislature proposed.
Here is a 2011 Perry speech against sanctuary cities: Link 3.
My impression is that Perry talks conservative (necessary to be elected in Texas and maybe if he wanted to be considered for president on the Republican ticket) but doesn't always follow through. If he were elected president, I would expect more of the same behavior. However, I don't think Perry would be as bad as Bush in that regard. W disappointed me greatly by not vetoing McCain-Feingold, not vetoing budget busting spending, advocating tax cuts that greatly expanded the number of people who don't pay income tax (very dangerous to the future of the country).
Perry is a political opportunist, but in any event would be a great improvement over Obama. Who wouldn't be?
“By putting off projected state costs for Medicaid, Turner said, “We have placed $4.8 billion on the Medicaid MasterCard.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7583632.html
That article has some good info in it.
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