Posted on 08/07/2011 3:01:13 PM PDT by Steelfish
Rick Perry's Call To Prayer Draws Crowd of 30,000 Secular America watches nervously as the Christian evangelical Texas governor moves closer to presidential bid
Ewen MacAskill in Houston Sunday 7 August 2011
Worshippers in the Reliant stadium, Houston, during the seven-hour prayer rally addressed by Rick Perry was billed as an attempt to reverse America’s national decline.
It was billed as a day of prayer and fasting to halt America's national decline, and about 30,000 answered the call, flooding into Houston's Reliant stadium for a seven-hour marathon which blended Christian revivalism with hard-headed electoral campaigning.
There was plenty of prayer: some of the faithful stood with arms held high in supplication, others danced trancelike in the aisles and still more lay spreadeagled on the floor.
The fasting was less conspicuous: long queues formed at Prince's Hamburgers, Tejas Nachos, Five Star Dogs and other fast-food stands inside the cavernous arena.
The rally on Saturday marked another step towards the launch of Rick Perry's presidential campaign, giving the governor of Texas a national platform for the first time, with 250 reporters and camera crews covering it.
More importantly, it virtually guaranteed him the support of the Christian evangelical movement, with its network of volunteers and finance, plus a large bloc of votes in Republican caucuses and primaries.
Perry, 61, who is in his third full term as governor, has still not officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. But whenever he does – he is expected to declare his intentions this month – he will likely become the frontrunner for the nomination to take on Barack Obama next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
The Guardian article is an attempt to ridicule the crowd as a 'bunch of hicks"
As the saying goes, “do not mess with TX”.
One Houston TV station said 40,000.
The mention of God does tend to make a lot of the freeloaders very nervous these days.
Texas Rangers counted 44,000.
Texas Rangers counted 44,000.
Stories like this could make me want him to run. I want a real Christian president, not a jackass who pretends he’s Christian like Obama. Get in Rick, and take the fight to Obama.
wait a second; was that natalie portman?
[wait a second; was that natalie portman?]
I’m gonna be a real dummy here Michael. I have poor hearing and can’t understand radio or broadcasts. I have not been able to listen to music in many years because of that and am not familiar with ‘who’s who’.
She had a lovely voice and did a LOT of singing.
Very clearly a hit-piece by the Guardian . . . but then the Guardian has always been a far left publication. No big surprise.
If anyone else had called forth the event, I would have said: “Great”.
I’m sorry, but coming from Rick Perry I do not view this as a fully “reverent” event.
I view it, in terms of Mr. Perry himself, as a venue not to “show who he is”, but simply to appeal to people he thinks he needs to appeal to in a run for President.
Sorry, call me cynical.
Ha ha ha! "virtually guaranteed him support..." Phony Christian, Rick Perry wishes that was so.
So, you get a bunch of people to come to a "Benny Hinn" type crusade and that somehow "guarantees" Rick Perry to get the Christian evangelical movement's support for President? LOL. It goes to show, that people are SO desperate for an honorable leader that they will fall for anyone who talks the Christian talk, but has no real evidence of it. There are people already in the race who walk the walk of a Christian and lived the life, but Rick Perry has the evangelical vote guaranteed. I have to laugh again. Ha ha ha!
Rick Perry just like George Bush may FOOL lots of gullible people that he's a Christian, but more and more of us are waking up and will not be the fool again. He does NOT have guaranteed support of Christian evangelicals. Keep on dreaming Perry. LOL!
THIS “secular American” sure isn’t nervous.
If they do not believe Christians should be involved in the political process, then say so and accept the flak.
Perhaps some of these people think they are “balancing” the prayers of the Christians. In that way, they are acknowledging the power of God, for if they believed prayer had no power, they would simply ignore the prayers.
I know they don't believe in God and they don't believe in prayer, so they had to do it out of sheer meanness.
Had this been Sarah Palin, there would have been 80,000+
The MSM can come up with a much more accurate total number of attendees.
I attended the meeting at the Reliant Stadium and we had to go through turnstyles.
DO YOU REALLY WANT TO JOIN THE RALLY?
Who is the Guardian and what are they guarding?
A bunch of Muslims?
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