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But let me ask you. If you were the Governor of Texas what would you do today about the border, illegal immigration, violence in TX (all border states), eduction of children, companies who hire illegals, etc.?

I forgot to address this in my last post, but since I replied to you, I feel I should.

I would stop playing games and do a much better job of securing the border and pressuring the feds. If we pull out of Afghanistan, the terrorists are going to get their act together and they are going to come after us hard, and the Mexican border will be the easiest route, especially with the amount of weapons floating around down there.

Illegal immigration and companies who hire illegal immigrants, they are an issue that are closely tied together. I would work hard on drying up the jobs. While it's a popular image that many come here to get on some kind of welfare/public assistance, the fact is that many are here working and sending money back to Mexico. We can keep on arresting people and occasionally deporting them, but that's just dealing with the symptoms and not the actual disease. When you hear about big companies getting busted for having dozens or even hundreds of illegal aliens, and for the most part the company gets a fine, the system is broke. In many cases, the fines are so low that it's still a better deal for the companies to try and continue employing illegals. Look at Tyson Foods - they've been busted, and not much happened. They are still busy giving plenty of donations to politicians from both parties. There has to be a line drawn where a company can no longer do business, and its executives must face jailtime, if they go over a certain amount of illegal immigrants. It's easy for one or two to slip through the cracks, but when you start talking dozens or more, there's people within the company that know what's going on.

As for education, I would have stood up to the federal government on No Child Left Behind. NCLB is screwing up our public schools and it has given the federal government too much control. The feds should not be able to hold our education taxdollars. It was one of the worst things that George W. Bush supported. I have wished that Rick Perry would take a stand and tell the feds to get lost and let Texans handle Texas' education issue. Our schools worked fine for decades, but now we are faced with bureacrats in Washington and Austin who are dictating to small school districts how to run things.

I feel for Perry, he's only been in office for 10 years, and it's tough to get a lot accomplished in Texas politics in such a short time. Still won't support him, but I sympathize, and I feel he is one of the more compassionate and border-aware candidates out there. Palin, Bachmann, etc. do not have nearly the grasp he has on the border issues.