Posted on 08/26/2011 5:56:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s suggestions that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s monetary policies are “treasonous” might be just a rhetorical speed bump on his road to the White House.
The tough-talking Texas governor is likely to be far more careful about what he says and how he says it – especially after the message delivered via a POLITICO story on Friday (“Perry’s loose lips worry Hill Republicans”).
“This is a very critical period for Perry,” Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole told reporters Jonathan Martin and Jake Sherman. “He’s got to prove he won’t self-destruct.”
However, Perry’s controversial statements – about Texas secession, the unconstitutionality of Social Security, his refusal to acknowledge climate change, his comparing homosexuality to alcoholism, his doubts about evolution and his questioning of President Barack Obama’s patriotism — may have already inflicted grave damage and, perhaps, destroyed his chance to become president.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who has made similar jarring statements in the past few years, may also be waging a hopeless campaign for president.
Could it be possible that a candidate’s statements made months or years before the presidential election can render someone virtually unelectable — even if that person wins a major-party nomination? Have Perry and Bachman already suffered serious self-inflicted wounds?
It’s likely, for example, that Sen. George McGovern never had a chance against President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. Not because of specific statements, but rather due to McGovern’s liberalism and his perceived intimacy with the radical antiwar movement. Walter Mondale’s statements about coming tax increases in 1984 may have similarly destroyed any chance of defeating President Ronald Reagan.
But it’s Sen. Barry M. Goldwater’s 1964 Republican presidential campaign that may be more instructive for Perry, Bachmann — and the GOP primary voters who value winning the White House over ideological purity.
Well before the conservative Arizona senator captured the nomination in July 1964, he made a habit of uttering reckless and ill-considered comments that gradually cemented an image of Goldwater as an impulsive cowboy, at best; and a dangerous radical, at worst.
That is the same danger facing Perry (and, to a lesser degree, Bachmann) today.
In the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a majority of Americans considered nuclear war a very real prospect. Steady, sober and wise U.S. leadership by President John F. Kennedy had saved the world. Goldwater, at least in his public comments, seemed oblivious to that fact.
After the missile crisis, in April 1963, Goldwater was in full cowboy mode, chiding Kennedy for his unwillingness to challenge the Soviets over Cuba. “The question is,” Goldwater said, “are we afraid to go to war. If we are not willing to take risks in this world, we might as well give up.”
The following month, Goldwater bragged about the accuracy of U.S. nuclear missiles, and launched an indirect attack on Kennedy’s proposal for a manned moon mission: “I don’t want to hit the moon,” Goldwater said, “I want to lob one [presumably a nuclear missile] into the men’s room of the Kremlin and make sure I hit it.”
Goldwater also talked about using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate the forests of Vietnam, and giving North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders in the field the authority to use nuclear weapons without prior presidential approval.
Reckless talk about nuclear war was only the down payment on the rhetorical gifts Goldwater bestowed on his opposition. He suggested ending Social Security and public education, selling the Tennessee Valley Authority and, jokingly, “saw[ing] off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.”
By the time Goldwater won the GOP nomination, he had a well-earned reputation as a bellicose extremist, which he haplessly reinforced by telling Republican convention delegates that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
On the night of Sept. 7, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign aired its famous “Daisy Girl” spot. In the commercial, aired only once as a paid ad on national TV, a tow-headed little girl counts as she plucks flower petals. Suddenly, a mission control countdown interrupts the tranquil scene, followed by apocalyptic images of a mushroom cloud and nuclear holocaust.
As the fiery cloud engulfed the screen, Lyndon Johnson’s voice intoned, “These are the stakes; to make a world in which all of God’s children can live — or go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die.”
The Daisy Girl spot was followed by a series of Johnson spots that stoked fears that a President Goldwater would start a nuclear war.
Campaign lore has it that the Daisy Girl spot and Johnson’s other nuclear-themed spots destroyed Goldwater. The polling data, however, suggest that Goldwater had already done most of that work himself. Johnson’s campaign spots merely served as a kiln that baked the radical cowboy image into something hard and durable.
Besides the polling numbers — which barely changed all 1964 – there is one bit of compelling evidence about the overwhelming baggage that Goldwater had brought to the fall campaign. The Daisy Girl spot — which many contend was a hard-hitting negative attack – never mentioned Goldwater’s name nor showed his image.
It didn’t need to. Voters knew what — and who — the spot was about.
Goldwater acknowledged as much in his 1988 memoir. “There was no doubt,” Goldwater wrote, “as to the meaning [of the Daisy Girl spot]. Barry Goldwater would blow up the world if he became president of the United States.”
Indeed, Goldwater had worked hard over the years to portray himself as a cowboy. And voters got the message.
As Republicans begin the process of choosing a presidential nominee, they would do well to study Goldwater’s ill-fated campaign and its self-inflicted wounds. The plainspoken senator’s extreme rhetoric — like Perry’s and Bachmann’s — had enormous appeal to many Republicans disgusted with the incumbent president’s social programs and defense policies.
Though Goldwater channeled the anger that eventually matured into the modern conservative movement, that rhetoric branded him as reckless and bellicose. His words and demeanor frightened moderates and independents looking for stability in an uncertain and dangerous world.
While the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets no longer hangs over our heads, it would be a mistake for Republicans, in their raw anger at President Barack Obama, to believe that independent voters will be any less interested in sober and responsible leadership than they were in 1964.
-- Robert Mann, a professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University’s Manship School, is the author of “Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad that Changed American Politics,” due out in November.
They should get scholarships in Mexico.
Who do you think is giving away free college tuition?
If you want to interject "RINO" into the discussion you have to deal with that little problem (and no, Ronaldus Magnus never ran for office as a Democrat).
We no longer have a need for RINOs.
That was almost a month ago. More recently:
“I don’t care much for Perry...”
31 posted on 08/22/2011 9:10:42 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2767637/posts?page=31#31
I guess the more you know about Perry the less there is to like.
So, if we held everything I proposed, we would still need one more state to get it done (or two more if one of them is New Hampshire +3).
Not a slam dunk, but certainly very doable as long as we have a reasonable candidate and there is not a strong third party candidate running.
Even New Hampshire would get us there because they now have 4 electoral votes.
So, take back Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida and ONE more state from my list, and we win it.
Sounds like a good plan, though! That gets us there with one more medium sized state.
I am not 100% confident in Ohio or North Carolina yet, but I feel very confident in FL and VA. Both look to have recovered from their moment of stupid in 2008. North Carolina polling is still iffy, and I imagine Ohio will come down to where we are in a year in the economy. I hope like hell my birth state makes a good decision in 2012. That is state that Obama and the unions can potentially make hay with when we get in the heat of the campaign. I believe your sweep of those states is the path to victory, though. We just need to pick off one of those other states, or two small ones.
Perry covered-up this scandal by refusing to release the public listing agreement, attempting to hide the identity of the land buyer and hiding the fact that the buyer was a business partner with the original seller.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20100725-murky-land-deals-mark-gov.-rick-perry_s-past.ece
After 4 straight Democratic administrations why can’t we nominate a Conservative Republican.
...Oh you say the Bush’s were Republicans. Could have fooled me.
I only read the title of the article.
Why read further?
New let a good lie go to waste, right Tempest?
Obama’s like LBJ in 1968
Tempest knows she’s spouting lies about him. Doesn’t care. Blather, blather, blather.
The number of illegal immigrant college students paying in-state tuition and receiving financial aid at Texas' public colleges and universities continues to climb, according to state higher education records.
During the fall semester, 12,138 students - about 1 percent of all Texas college students - benefited from the state law granting in-state tuition, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Most of the immigrants among those students are illegal, and some others are not legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens.
Texas awarded about $33.6 million in state and institutional financial aid to those students between fall 2004 and summer 2008
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2763711/posts
But that’s not what you said Tempest. You said illegals were getting “free tuition”, NOT instate tuition. Please go back and read your own words.
33.6million dollars in taxpayer fubded state tuition isn’t free? amazing...
Financial Aid
Undocumented immigrant students are eligible to apply for state aid such as the Texas Grant, Texas Educational Opportunity Grant, Texas Public Education Grant, or CAL Loans. For more information regarding specific school policies please contact the colleges that you are interested in attending. Students must complete the Texas Application for State Financial Aid (TASFA) or complete a paper version of the Free Application for Federal Student AID (FAFSA) and submit it directly to the college’s financial aid office. You will also be required to submit the following:
Parents’ Income Tax Returns (1040, 1040A or 1040 EZ)
College’s Verification Worksheet for Dependent Students
W-2’s
http://www.txdreamactalliance.com/obtain-in-state-residency/
His first wife Peggy was a National Director of Planned Barrenhood from about 1940 to her death in 1975 or so. Barry Goldwater was another abortion enthusiast who bragged about bringing his daughter for an abortion and that anyone who did not like it could kiss his ass. Actually we ought to have kicked it.
Goldwater was also an enthusiastic supporter of homosexual "rights" and had risen in defense of homosexual relatives.
Goldwater was far more a libertarian than a conservative. His book should have been Presumptions of a Gadfly. "His book" was ghostwritten and issued in his name. The best part of Goldwater even as a libertarian was his speechwriter Karl Hess.
He was an advocate of sharply reducing the size of government and was sometimes a supporter of military hardware. He had a salty personality that pleased conservatives numb from suffocating liberalism.
He eagerly supported Gerald Ford over Ronaldus Maximus and even cut an advertisement for the California, reminiscent of the little girl with the daisy ad used against BMG in 1964, asking primary voters whether they REALLY trusted Reagan near the nuclear button.
He supported Lowell Weicker when Weicker was being driven from the Senate by Connecticut conservatives.
He was not fit to shine Reagan's boots.
In later years, Mr. Integrity also developed into a serial liar (promising to change to pro-life in 1980 in exchange for pro-life endorsements when he seemed to be going down) and then reneging 100%, not that pro-lifers should EVER have trusted him. We can do without another Goldwater. What we need is more conservatives like Reagan, Laxalt, Buckley, and others like them.
Goldwater had no shame and you can bet that Goldwater's ever present animus against Reagan was motivated by Goldwater's intimate connections to Planned Barrenhood, and love for abortion and support of legalized perversions of others.
Laxalt should’ve been Reagan’s running mate in 1980, not Bush.
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