Posted on 08/17/2011 5:13:04 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
How do you start from nothing and quickly rev up a serious presidential campaign in a state as big as Florida?
We're about to see Rick Perry try.
.....Grass roots activists and veteran political consultants say they see no sign of Bachmann trying to organize a campaign in Florida, though on Aug. 27 she plans to attend a tea party rally in The Villages and then a Florida Family Policy Council dinner in Orlando. And the campaign told the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday night that it has no plans to compete in a mock election planned by the state GOP next month.
It's a different story with Perry, who formally jumped into the race Saturday.
Perry campaign officials are talking to some of the top Republican strategists,....The late entry into the contest has also contacted many of the state's top money-raisers and found some keen interest.
"You will see quite a number of top fundraisers come on board for Perry. I've talked to many of my Republican friends in Florida, and there is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for Perry," said St. Petersburg doctor Akshay "A.K." Desai,..."Some of the people who signed up with other candidates, I think you will see moving to Perry."
Local party leaders in Florida say they struggle to communicate with anyone in the Bachmann campaign but Perry's people are talking about a vigorous Florida effort.
...."There's an enormous amount of goodwill and work ethic, the kind we haven't seen in years, ready to go for Perry. … We're forced to meet with people and gather contact information, even before the campaign infrastructure is in place. Once his message gets out I think Romney's a cooked goose,'' said Wes Maddox a Tampa GOP activist and former Texas A&M classmate of Perry's.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Thanks to Perry. Not the pizza guy, or the congresswoman, or congressman, or former senator, or former speaker. None of them laid a glove on Romney. Perry is attacking Obama and dispatching Romney all in a week's work.
S&P upgrades Florida’s credit rating
http://www.wokv.com/news/news/local/floridas-credit-rating-upgraded/nDJ4L/
While the United States credit rating with Standard & Poor’s may have been downgraded recently, Florida’s jumped from AA+ to AAA.
S&P upgraded Florida in July, and the improved credit rating means better interest rates for the state. So Florida took advantage of that and refinanced some of its old bonds, thereby saving millions of dollars.
Since July Florida has refinanced $1.5 billion in bonds, totaling $135 million in savings for the state. ....Tax reductions and state budget cuts were the keys to Governor Rick Scott convincing S&P to upgrade Florida’s credit rating. bttt
And Gov. Perry is doing it by going after Obama and his destruction of the country.
Love those Ricks!
[Rick] Scott Promotes Controversial Education Reforms [Rick Perry has championed] “Gov. Rick Scott has begun discreetly promoting the same changes to the higher education system that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has championed. The proposals include some of the same reforms pushed by conservatives in K-12 schools: merit pay for professors, tenure reform, and generally a much greater emphasis on measurement of whether professors are turning out students that meet certain goals.
The attempt in Texas has caused something of an identity crisis in that states higher education community, with opponents saying what needs to be reformed is Perrys control over university policies.".........
***********
Bolstering one of the problems of higher education in Perry's education message [separate research] -- described today in the LA Times:
Take back the liberal arts - Too often, liberal arts courses aren't attuned to undergraduates looking for a broader understanding of the world but toward professor's narrow interests. -
………”Amherst once had a college-wide course called "Evolution of the Earth and Man," team taught by faculty from geology through genetics. It was exactly the sort of thing that drew people into the sciences. However, that offering no longer exists. Such classes don't earn points for the professors who plan them. Instead, they are expected to be doing research that will lead to tenure or higher ranks, which often means they are concentrating on ever more obscure topics.
An American Mathematical Society study of introductory courses found that only 11% were taught by regular faculty. Professors making their mark in "orbit structure of diffeomorphims of manifolds" feel their talents would be wasted teaching Math 101. But they might mull Albert Einstein's words to young researchers: "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."
There are still colleges where the contents of the bottles match the labels. But they tend to be more modest schools, ones that don't expect their faculties to make national reputations in research. Occidental College in Los Angeles is such a school, as is Hendrix College in Arkansas and the new Quest University Canada in British Columbia. And there are excellent dedicated liberal arts colleges within affordable public systems. New College of Florida and St. Mary's College of Maryland are two; also Arizona State University's Barrett honors college and Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, which waives tuition for students who maintain a 3.5 grade-point average.
As high school students and their parents consider college options, they might want to take a careful look at catalogs and course descriptions. In higher education these days, it's buyer beware.” [end]
Perry’s highlighting Romney’s weaknesses for sure (and for which I’m grateful).
But Romney won’t be dispatched nearly that quickly and methinks Perry is at risk of doing his own campaign in before he sinks Romney.
What makes you say that about Perry? The Bernanke stuff?
The bravado, the sexist jokes, the nah-nah-ing at Romney, the Islamist cronyism, his own records on illegal immigration, spending and general cronyism.
He’s got a macaca moment coming for sure, though I’m not sure in what area exactly.
Meanwhile, he’s also great fun, shaking up the race, and actually going after Romney and Obama.
“methinks Perry is at risk of doing his own campaign in before he sinks Romney.”
I don’t really see any signs of that. The GOP primary voters are hungry (starving in fact) for a top tier candidate that will really go hard after Obama rhetorically, and Mitt just doesn’t have it in him. Perry is filling a real void here, and although the “drive bys” are gonna have a cow every time he goes after their precious “one”, I think it helps him tremendously not just with the GOP voters but the general public as well-especially while the economy is in the tank like this.
No I think Perry’s campaign is pretty well thought out and deliberate. He is clearly modeling the Reagan-Carter 1980 campaign. Go back and watch some video of the rhetoric Reagan used against Carter, and you’ll see that he went after him pretty hard too, and it definitely worked very well. I think Perry’s got the right strategy here, and I don’t think anyone in the current group of GOP candidates is gonna stop him.
No, going after Obama hard is a good thing, as I said, and Perry is exposing Romney’s weakness.
Go back and replay the George Allen macaca moment and ask yourself is Perry really going to be able to keep from stepping in something that the MSM will be able to flush him on? There are all kinds of signs that he’s likely to give them that opening.
Perry seems like he can take the heat a little better than George Allen. But you are right about one thing, the only way Romney beats Perry is if Perry drops out.
Perry’s also exposing Bachmann as the stepford candidate people were coming to see her as.
She also does some things very well (actually better than Perry): like being right on illegal immigration and just about every other issue and presenting a smooth, reasoned and presidential demeanor in debates and interviews.
But along with having zero executive experience and little legislative accomplishment, she isn’t near the class of national-caliber, retail campaigner that Perry or Palin is.
Also, I don’t write off Romney’s chances as quickly as you do. He’s got a lot of money and Perry could make even just the one critical mistake.
I’ve never taken Bachmann seriously. Palin’s not in the race, and I don’t know how good a retail campaigner she is—she never ran for re-election. Perry has been re-elected a couple of times, so the record there is clear.
Bachmann doesn’t live in or govern in a border state — so her “words” are just that, words.
Bachmann doesn’t govern at all. She’s one out of 435 congressmen. Hopefully Perry beats her in IA and we can be done with the nonsensical idea that she should be president.
Agreed re: Bachmann’s words only being words.
My take is that those pols who have lived in border states are the very last ones we want influencing policy on illegal immigration, however. Along with apparently needing to be pro-illegal to get enough votes, they seem struck by a more severe kind of white guilt than even that which helped get Obama elected.
Oh, and Palin was re-elected in a landslide on the hyper-retail mayoral level. She also of course was prominent in Perry’s being re-elected with more than the plurality he got in his first re-election.
And we’ve got her very public, often retail, campaigning that we’ve seen on the national level over the last three years. She’s got her weaknesses that she can be faulted on, but retail campaigning skills are certainly not among them.
Minnesota is a border state, and you don’t have to be the governor of California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas, to have a plan on illegal immigration.
Exactly! He’s not really focusing on the other candidates; he’s focusing on going after Obama, and that’s what’s important.
Love it! bttt
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