Rick Perry panic fires up the left

Politico ^ | 8-30-2011 | Ben Smith & Maggie Haberman

[smoothsailing]

Rick Perry panic fires up the left

by Ben Smith & Maggie Haberman

August 30, 2011

In his two weeks as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry has done something that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney could do: wake up the left.

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty and the separation of church and state.

The epidemic of lefty angst isn’t just a matter of specific Perry policies though; it goes to the heart of the liberal worldview. His smashing debut on the presidential stage suggests that the victory of an urban liberal Democrat, Barack Obama, wasn’t a step toward a more progressive nation, but just a leftward swing of an increasingly wild pendulum, now poised to rocket to the right.

“His entry in the race is a signal and a wake-up call,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told POLITICO.

Perry, Sharpton said, “is looking to go to the O.K. Corral and start shooting…. Rather than the left get caught sleeping, we better load up, because he is bringing it.”

For Democrats, the pre-Perry GOP primary process was hardly for the faint of heart, as the other candidates have jockeyed to show who dislikes Obama the most. But even as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad – if not worse – than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

“His work as governor is unparalleled in its frontal assault on women,” said Siobhan Bennett, the president of the Women’s Campaign Forum, citing statistics on women living in poverty and without health care in Texas, and Perry’s active opposition to abortion. “He has gone farther out on a limb legislatively in his capacity as governor and has been expressly anti-woman in the legislation he has done.”

“He is beyond what we expect from conservative Republicans on the gun issue,” said Dennis Henigan, the acting president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who cited Perry’s support for gun rights on college campuses and said it was a sharp contrast with Romney’s “moderate” record. Perry’s rise, he said, had already become “a strong mobilizing force” for gun control activists, whose agenda has been largely ignored by the Obama administration.

“People are perceiving a very real threat that he could be the Republican nominee,” said Henigan, calling the prospect “quite frightening.”

Barry Lynn, whose Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is on the front lines of keeping religion out of public life, also labeled Perry an extreme figure.

“He doesn’t just go to religious right gatherings – he creates religious right gatherings and that’s a big difference,” he said, citing The Response, an 30,000-person event Perry led in Houston in early August.

Lynn said last week’s polls showing Perry in the lead among Republicans had startled his group’s supporters.

“Any time there’s a very viable candidate who has taken on the mantle of a crusader for Christ and ignorer of the Constitution, that makes very many people who care about the real Constitution very nervous,” he said.

Backers of another longstanding liberal cause, campaign finance reform, see a similar threat from Perry, given his career tapping the bottomless Texas wells of oil money and his current status as beneficiary of not one but several new Super PACs.

“It looks like Rick Perry’s campaign and its supporters are taking secret corporate spending to a new level,” said New York City Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, who has campaigned against corporate involvement in politics. “His actions personify the corporate sponsored campaigns that many of us feared Citizens United would create.”

The death penalty, another longstanding liberal target, has figured prominently in Perry’s career: He has presided over more executions than any other governor, commuting just one sentence in his three terms years and vetoing a bill that would have banned the execution of the mentally handicapped, something the Supreme Court later outlawed.

Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Perry’s conduct of the death penalty was in fact “typical” for a conservative Southern governor, and that the high numbers largely reflected the size of his state and the length of his tenure; the rate of executions has actually declined since the Bush years.

But for death penalty foes, a symbol of Perry’s shortcomings on the issue is his rebuff in 2004 of the Innocence Project’s petitions on behalf of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man convicted of murdering his family on the basis of scientific evidence arson experts described as unreliable. In 2009, Perry abruptly replaced officials who were investigating the case.

“That’s a worrisome series of events about what people are most concerned about when they think about the death penalty – and that is innocence,” said Dieter.

Perry is certainly to Romney’s right on many of these policy issues. Romney, for instance, pushed legislation in Massachusetts that would have reinstated a death penalty only in very limited, carefully vetted circumstances. But Perry isn’t necessarily far outside the Republican mainstream in, for instance, his implacable opposition to taxes and abortion, or his support for religion in public life. His stated support for states rights might, in theory, make him less likely to intervene on social issues than some of his GOP rivals.

But Perry’s combination of policy, Southern style and an easy, unstudied adherence to contemporary religious and political conservative doctrine has put him beyond the reach even of some Democrats who sometimes cross the aisle. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 and has criticized Obama’s foreign policy, cited Perry’s recent stated skepticism about the theory of evolution.

“I can’t support anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution – that to me is too much,” said Koch.

And while conservatives enjoy Perry’s ability to enrage their liberal foes, some Democratic strategists have also welcomed his emergence.

“Whether he’s the nominee or not, he absolutely helps fire up our base,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the vice president for communications at the liberal Center for American Progress. “To the degree to which progressives are disaffected and unenthusiastic – this is their ‘holy sh**’ moment.”

Clinton strategist James Carville, however, said Perry remains his second choice.

“Actually we’d all prefer Michele Bachmann,” he said.

Emily Schultheis contributed.

© 2011 POLITICO LLC

[BillyBoy]

So the premise of Rick Perry fans is Rick Perry is the ONLY person on the planet who can "win"? Michele Bachmann has zero chance of defeating an incumbent with a 38% approval rating?

Personally I think she'd do a lot better in swing states than a guy who looks and sounds like a clone of GWB.

[BillyBoy]

>> electability is one of the major factors we have to look at <<

If I was ranking Rick Perry SOLELY on electablity (rather than overall ablities), he'd end up alot lower on that list. Perry's vote totals are pretty mediocre considering he has the fortune to run a super safe Republican state. George W. Bush was MUCH more popular in Texas, and he only got 271 electoral votes nationally. The only reason Perry keeps "winning" in Texas is he's lucky enough to have token opposition that's even worse. If he had to run for Governor of a state like Michigan or Wisconsin against a well-funded Democrat, I'm pretty sure he would have gotten crushed.

I suppose Cain and Gingrinch might be weaker when it comes to the "electablity" factor, but that's about it.

[Oceander]

Why? Are you planning to go AWOL from the thread once I post this and “Sarah Palin” or “Ron Paul” isn’t my ONLY choice like the Perrybots insist?

Oh well, here you go, better choices that Rick Perry:

Michele Bachmann Thaddeus McCotter Rick Santorum Herman Cain Buddy Roemer

And when Pawlenty was in the race, he was a superior choice as well. Both were ho-hum governors, but Pawlenty was less fake and didn’t try to rewrite his past history. Also, he won far tougher elections than Perry ever did.

Pawlenty couldn't stand the heat in the kitchen, which doesn't reflect positively on him. More to the point, however, he most likely pulled out because his own advisors told him that his odds of being elected were small so, almost by definition, he isn't just as electable as Perry (or anyone else who hasn't had a case of premature withdrawal yet).

Michele Bachmann is not more electable if for no other reason because her resume is way too thin at this point; we've already had more than enough from someone who's only real political experience is 4 years in Congress. She's also started going off the silly end with some of her comments, such as the nonsense about repealing the minimum wage law. She has definitely made valuable contributions and if she builds on them she will - in time - become formidable; now is too early, however.

Thaddeus McCotter - don't know enough about him to say one way or another substantively; however, considering that he threw his hat in the ring July 2, he hasn't made much of a mark on the national stage which suggests that he's got a much longer path to walk toward getting sufficient national recognition. That by itself makes him less electable than Perry at this point in time. That may change given that we're still more than a year away from the 2012 election; I won't bet much money on that possibility, though.

Rick Santorum - if you don't like special favors for friends that put ordinary Americans at risk, and don't care for alternative energy subsidies, then I'm not sure why you'd particularly care for Mr. Santorum. He sponsored legislation that would have prevented the national weather service from providing weather data to the public when private companies - including one in his home state - provide the same information commercially; considering that "weather data" would include information regarding dangerous weather conditions, I wouldn't consider this a sterling sample of his legislative goals. He also stuck in a synthetic fuels tax credit gimme in the tax relief act of 2006.

Santorum is at most just as electable as Perry, but certainly is neither superior nor more electable.

Herman Cain - he's a good man with a lot of wisdom to impart, but he is most definitely not more electable than Perry.

Buddy Roemer - Buddy who? From a quick glance his record doesn't appear to be much greater than Perry's and his experience is rather dated, to be kind. Giving him the benefit of the doubt on his record, he is still not as electable as Perry because, again, he has almost no exposure or name recognition.

Got anyone else in mind?

[CajunConservative]

The general election is going to be whomever we choose and 0bama. This election is about the economy period. People aren’t going to be ready to trust those without experience after the utter failure of 0bama and his policies. Perry does have the most experience out of all the current or possible candidates in governing three plus terms of the 2nd most populous state with the world’s 15th largest economy.

Who else on the list is even close to know what all it takes to run a large state and economy? Experience does matter this election.

[CajunConservative]

She really doesn’t have a chance outside the extreme right and Christian conservatives. I like her but her lack of experience governing is a factor, the other is her constantly putting her foot in her mouth.

[CajunConservative]

Buddy Roemer is a good guy but he’s got the “I lost to David Duke in the primary” monkey on his back. He also has no money.

His loss brought on the “Vote for the crook, it’s important.” campaign slogan for the crooked and corrupt Edwin Edwards.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/07/edwin_edwards_buddy_roemer_and.html

[Oceander]

Thanks for the info. I took a quick look at some summaries of his record, and I think your characterization is accurate on both accounts.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Yet Perry not only voted against Reagan twice

Got a link for that assertion? Last democratic president Perry voted for was Carter in 1976. "Peanut Farmer, Georgian -- he sure fooled us".

How would you have any idea who a person voted for, except for what they tell you?

but actively opposed his legacy by supporting Gore to succeed him.

You certainly can't believe that George HW Bush was "Reagan's Legacy".

Waiting for you to show he voted against Reagan, when Perry has said he didn't vote for a democrat after Carter in 1976.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Palin. If she’s unavailable, let’s draft Gov. Paul LePage of Maine

Didn't Palin endorse his opponent in the last election?

[CajunConservative]

That was a real soap opera. I like Roemer, he has some good common sense ideas but he’s not going to do nationally what he did statewide when he first ran for governor.

This election is not like the others, in that we have a traitorous bastard occupying the WH at the moment. The main primary goal is ensuring we kick his azz out this election.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I think that is some of your best work.

[CT]

Perry isn't a RINO. He's a CROC (Conservative Republican Opposed to Communism). Bank on it.

[ishmac]

What we must do, come Hell or high water, is support the ascendancy of the Tea Party at all levels of government. From local dog catcher to federal Congress.

I can live with a Tea Party Congress and a President Perry.

[South40]

lol! I can't remember how many times a Perrybot has accused me of being a Paultard. It's happened two times in the past 24 hours. I have even provided proof to the contrary but, just as with their backing an ILLEGAL alien loving RINO in Mitt Perry, they just can't accept that they are wrong.

---------------------------------------------------------

Mindless Perrybot accuses me of being a Paultard

Perrybot lies about me again in his attempt to convince other Perrybots that I am a Paultard stating, “By looking at his older posts. Seems so.”

Perrybot is exposed for the liar that he is when I provide ‘older posts' proving I have a long history of calling Ron Paul the kook that we know he is.

Upon being provided proof he is delusional Perrybot states, "If you are not a Ron Paul supporter you have me and others fooled

This particular Perrybot made a fool of himself by lying about me and he made fools of other Perrybots by including them in his delusion and making them believe his lie. It was comical and I am laughing about it still. I have no idea why they cannot understand that we needn't be a supporter of Ron Paul to see RINO Mitt Perry for the fraud that he is.

[South40]

Correction:

Upon being provided proof he is delusional Perrybot states, "If you are not a Ron Paul supporter you have me and others fooled

[Gene Eric]

“We’re surrounded... that simplifies our problem.”

One of the most memorable points in the Art of War...

[Impy]

I just love the tools that throw “concern troll” around. I love them even more than the little girls who constantly throw out “Alinksy tactics” or accuse someone of being a “stalking horse”.

When you can’t think of anything else to say, throw out stupid accusations using buzz terms.

Next one to do it to me is getting nothing but buzz terms back in his face.

[Defiant]

That’s not very civil, is it?

[BillyBoy]

>> lol! I can't remember how many times a Perrybot has accused me of being a Paultard. It's happened two times in the past 24 hours. I have even provided proof to the contrary but, just as with their backing an ILLEGAL alien loving RINO in Mitt Perry, they just can't accept that they are wrong. <<

Heh. Yeah one of Rick Perry's fanboys ("omg!! look at a video of this speech Rick Perry gave to the TEA PARTY!! he has BALLS!!! we need more Governors like this!!") deleted me off facebook and accused me of being a Ron Paul fan because I questioned if St. Rick's actions matched his words.

It's odd that they believe there's some kind of conspiracy from the cult of Ron Paul to "destroy" Perry, since the Ron Paul kooks go after EVERY non-Paul candidate with equal fervor and not just their boy Rick. Anyone that is trolling for Ron Paul doesn't last on FR very long.

You can check my posting history too and quickly learn I despise Paul, but again facts don't matter to Perry supporters. The criticisms of Perry don't even sound remotely like the talking points of Paul supporters, otherwise we'd be posting something like "The R3VOLUTION is coming and the tyrannical Rick Perry is obviously no friend of the LIBERTY movement. His neo-con agenda is to wage endless war in the name of security. Obviously he neither knows nor cares about preserving the original Constitution of our founders like Dr. Paul does"

The ironic thing is alot of the Perry support talking points do sound like they were borrowed straight out of the Ron Paul playbook: quipping "You either support the 10th amendment or you don't!" to make excuses for your candidate failing to support conservative legislation. Sound familiar?

[BillyBoy]

>> Perry isn't a RINO. He's a CROC (Conservative Republican Opposed to Communism). Bank on it. <<

Perry is a CRAPP.... he runs on a Conservative Republican Agenda to Persuade Partisans.

He's an professional politician with a track record of sucking up to liberals in both parties when the wind is blowing that way. But he knows he has to be SEEN as a staunch anti-establishment "tea party" conservative in the eyes of voters in order to win the GOP primary and get elected in Texas. If he were running in Massachusetts instead, he'd be another Romney.