Posted on 06/25/2011 2:28:50 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Rick Perry may just be the guy. The country's longest tenured governor, from its second-largest state, is generating a lot of buzz in conservative circles as he contemplates entering the wide open Republican presidential primary. There are plenty of reasons that Perry is an attractive option: he is a no-nonsense decision-maker with solid conservative credentials. A man who not only speaks about family values, but lives them, Perry's power to persuade voters to see things his way is proven -- battle-tested in a state known for independent-minded citizens.
But what serious political analysts on both sides of the aisle will acknowledge as perhaps Perry's strongest attribute heading into 2012 is the stark contrast that would be evident in a potential Perry-Obama showdown. While Republican front-runner Mitt Romney capitulates to the left on global warming, refuses to sign a pro-life pledge, and ridiculously defends the RomneyCare failure in Massachusetts, the media is working overtime to tout their choice, former Utah Governor and Obama administration official Jon Huntsman, as the Republicans' best hope. What nonsense.
While Huntsman or Romney might please the same Republican establishment that brought us the mesmerizing campaigns of John McCain and Bob Dole, the best thing for the Republican Party -- and the country -- is for there to be a sharp distinction between the two parties' nominees. If there were any question about whether Rick Perry would provide a clear alternative to Obama, look only to the left's reaction to Perry's recent speech at the Republican Leadership Conference.
Following his remarks (which, though well-prepared and delivered, were nothing outside mainstream conservative thought), MSNBC's liberal commentator Mika Brzezinski proclaimed that she "felt like an alien" watching the speech.......I found myself applauding Mika's refreshing candor about the perspective of the American left.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“I am curious to see what The Free Republic response to Gov. Perry as a potential GOP candidate for the 2012 POTUS election will be.”
Speaking for myself, I have mixed emotions. I want to see an actual conservative run for President on the gop ticket. Because I am a conservative and a patriot and do care about this country.
Then there is that selfish part of me that would much rather stay home, tend to the garden, read books, and not lift a finger to assist the feckless gop and it’s faux conservative candidates.
“Gardasil Rick” Perry is the kind of fair weather conservative who talks a good tale until about 15 minutes after the election. So, for what are purely selfish reasons, I have some hope that he becomes the gop candidate. I’ll have a nicer garden, and will be able to sleep in late on election day.
I’ll even name a row of vegetables after him.
As Rick Perry said when he VETOED this nanny-state bill:
".....Texting while driving is reckless and irresponsible. I support measures that make our roads safer for everyone, but House Bill 242 is a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults. Current law already prohibits drivers under the age of 18 from texting or using a cell phone while driving. I believe there is a distinction between the overreach of House Bill 242 and the government's legitimate role in establishing laws for teenage drivers who are more easily distracted and laws providing further protection to children in school zones......"
Oh, and the HPV shot was "opt-out."
You’re swimming upstream against a tide of “Run Rick Run!”
You’re a one trick pony.
"Mixed" by posters, "tolerated" (for the time-being) by the administrators.
“Politics in Texas is bettern TV wrasslin’!”
Lol! That could be true. As for the issues brought out here, some are non-issues or exaggerations. Overall, Perry is not perfect....like all the rest of the human race. I think one reason you see this *ruler of ideological perfection* used to size up every candidate (in order to toss out what is not perfect) is that people are truly fearful of our future. People see what has been wrought by liberal policies and corruption and understand that we are in a very serious situation. They are (consciously or unconsciously) looking for some perfect SuperHuman to save us.
Such a human being does not exist.
As for me, I haven’t made any firm commitment yet. It’s still too early and this election race will get a lot more interesting. My hubby and I are both interested in Perry and think he could be an excellent candidate.
We also wish Santorum had better numbers.
And we are praying for our nation.
You defend STATE ORDERED MEDICINE where the profits
went to Perry.
Perry is a fascist RINO who imposed poisons on children
who were chaste and did not need it.
You defend THAT?
Think I’ll pass. He makes the right noises but noise is really all it is.
I take the Gardasil adventure seriously, too, because I see it as a character flaw that can't fail to show up again: Rick got fat donations from Merck exactly around the time his program was announced. That looks especially bad in light of the fact that the spirit of it was against his general support for Texas liberty.
Perry had no coherent defense for what he tried to do. It was beyond Bloomberg in many ways, and the legislature was right to override him. I'm sorry I saw what I did. I love a lot of the quotes I see from him. But I can't unsee what I saw.
Perry seems to be the latest flavor of the month from the "Anybody but Palin" crowd.
Perry rejects conservatives' vaccine backlash
Trans-Texas Corridor plans dropped after public outcry
AWK!! That last link is more damning than any of the rest.
LG - check out VirginiaRidgerunner’s list of Perry no nos.
After hangin’ out with Gore in ‘88, Perry turned Republican in ‘89.
That is disingenuous.
I was fighting for my own daughter not to have to take this shot. The ONLY option I had was to get a *religious* exemption and not allow her to have *any* vaccines at all.
MY daughter has an immuno-deficiency. She is missing part of her immune system. We've had luck with traditional vaccines (which still don't work well with her body - she got measles after being fully vaccinated and the pneumonia vaccine didn't register. She had to get it again.)
With her weakened immune system, we didn't know how she would react to Gardisil. We don't have her vaccinated with anything that isn't tried and true and we don't expose her to anything that isn't necessary. (She's also vulnerable to autoimmune diseases and anything could set her off.)
Rick Perry's EXECUTIVE ORDER would make it impossible to manage my daughter's vaccines on a medical basis. It was an all-or-nothing situation.
My friend has a son who's allergic to eggs. There is NO opt-out option for this kid on a medical basis. In order for him to go to college, he had to vaccinated in the emergency room so they could deal with the anaphylactic shock. (The local schools were understanding and didn't push it when they got a note from the doctor, even though they were BREAKING STATE LAW by doing this.)
Oh and one more thing: My daughter received her last round of vaccines from the school nurse with no notification to me or permission from me. When I signed the normal 'going to school' paperwork, there was one allowing the school to administer emergency medical care to my daughter if she needed it. I was thinking that this meant that they'd apply pressure if she were bleeding out. In Texas, this also means that they can vaccinate her for anything without my express consent.
So don't tell me that there's an 'opt-out' option in Texas and do NOT imply that gardisil was optional.
Marie,
I am truly sorry to hear of your daughter’s immuno-deficiency. But I can not believe that Gov Rick Perry’s EO has caused all the problems you have attributed to him. It must be terribly frustrating to deal with your situation and I do sincerely wish you an easier time in the future.
I’m not arguing with you, but I don’t understand something you said:
I passed out letters home to my middle school students about a school shot clinic. They had to have a signed document from home in order to get those shots. No signed paper, no shots. The only way a kid without papers could have gotten the shot would have been by error.
I could be wrong, but I think you are in error when you say that “they can vaccinate her for anything without my consent.”
I hate it when FReepers 'pooh-pooh' the gardisil incident as if it weren't a big deal.
This was an affront to civil liberties. This was an affront to parental rights. This was an affront to religious rights. Texas' current vaccine laws are an affront to the right to have medical care be between a patient and a doctor.
This is a perfect example of how Perry thinks and where his moral compass really points.
And I cannot *believe8 that my fellow conservatives scoff at those of us who are upset about this and blow it off as 'no big deal'.
My fellow FReepers who spit and snarl over Obama's EO's are just fine with this one that was a *direct* threat to our vulnerable daughters.
And Perry said that the state legislature had "no right" to override his highness's executive decision?
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=29220
Well, they slapped him down and vetoed this order anyway.
HE DID NOT "see the light" and "change his mind". He was beaten back by the state congress! He even refused to sign the bill, but he didn't need to because it had enough votes to override his veto.
In the school system that both of my children attend, they can and they do.
I took my son to be registered. Part of that registration was to run by the school nurse’s office to have her check the vaccination records. My son was missing a vaccine. The nurse told him to sit down and pulled out a pre-loaded syringe. I asked her how she could do this without my permission and she told me that I gave my permission with the emergency medical form.
My daughter came home with a band-aid on her arm. I asked her what happened and she told me that she had to get the Hep-B vaccine. (We had homeschooled before this and I had declined this shot in the past.)
Again, no permission.
Yes, this does happen in Texas and it happens often.
Perry would make a great President of Mexico...or the UN’s North American Union.
He loves the racist organization LaRaza; he’s a multicultural tribalist. He’d impose amnesty in a New York minute even though he’s from Texas and he’d leave the borders wide open to make sure the invasion continues.
He’d be a disaster for the interests of America and Americans. He’s a globalist, meaning his agenda does not have anything to do with the interests or well being of Americans nor of constitutional freedom and citizenship.
Perry should be considered among those who are acceptable as candidates. He is pro-life, pro-God, pro-guns, pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-fiscal responsibility, and pro-free market.
There are some problems with Perry in some immigration positions he has taken. Some take issue with his state-run, opt-outable immunization for some STD or another. Some don’t like his support of the free trade agreement as evidenced in his support the trans-texas corridor.
To me, the question is whether I want Perry with his positives or Romney with his negatives. Perry’s positives far out-weigh Romney’s positives. And Romney’s negatives are much worse than Perry’s negatives.
Anyone who can count electoral votes based on the patterns of recent history knows that Perry begins with huge Texas and in all likelihood runs the south, most of the southwest, and a fair part of the midwest.
In other words, Perry is extremely viable as a winner.
While Palin remains my #1 choice, as each day passes I do not see her doing the things to get into the race. She has been terribly vilified, and it’s possible she either doesn’t want to go through that again, or she has polling data that says it’s too hard to reverse the damage in the time she has til the election.
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