The problem with that shaky defense of Perry is that one can start in the 1960s, when the Dim party was clearly on the course to what it has become, and make of list of all the Dim politicians and Dim actions that did NOT cause Rick Perry to leave the Dim party until after 1988.
Perry was still supporting a Dim for president in 1988, after more than 20 years of many hard left policies from the Dim party.
About the best defense that can be made for Perry on this is that he is a very slow learner.
This has gotten ridiculous.
Just like Cain his supporters jump to defend Mitt over Perry every time. Pretty lame.
How long have you been a republican?
Is the republican party of today the one you thought you joined (I’m assuming years ago)?
Hashed and rehashed. Old, old, old.
You don’t know anything about Texas’ political history or else you deliberately falsify.
Texas was late coming to the Republican Party. All of Texas. Not just a few people and not just Rick Perry.
Phil Gramm was a House Democrat who helped Reagan pass his bills, only later becoming a Republican. He was an economics college teacher before changing.
John Connally became a Republican. He was a long time, powerful Democrat affiliated with LBJ. But he changed.
Ralph Hall of the House of Representatives, was a long time Dem with the most Conservative voting record in the House, bar none, until as a white haired elderly man he finally changed to GOP. He voted “present” rather than vote for Pelosi and her ilk while a Dem. He voted against bailouts and debt ceiling raises, etc, just recently.
Zell Miller of GA will die a Dem, because his father would never understand if he became a Republican. But he votes conservative and campaigns for select Republicans.
Texas is Dem by TRADITION, going back for generations. Rural TX was especially wedded to Dems. The Republicans were forever associated in their minds with Herbert Hoover and the Depression, and with Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Only gradually, and in fits and starts, did it come around but it came.
You want to assign something to Rick Perry, who is from one of the most rural and traditional counties in TX, something that applies to an entire state.
Wise up, or just drop the foolishness.
Hardly. It’s neither a shaky defense nor an indication that Perry is a “slow learner.” Perry is younger than Reagan and therefore would not have changed as early as Reagan did. Furthermore, to paraphrase the old adage, if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 you’re heartless; if you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, your brainless.
Quite frankly, everything else being equal, I would place more trust in someone who started as a democrat and then made a mature, considered choice to switch to the republican party than I would in someone who was a life-long republican because that is how the family has always been (I ain’t sayin’ that’s you, I’m just sayin’).
The year Perry supported Gore in the primary, was the year Michael Dukakis won the Dem nomination.
Perry went on from supporting Gore to voting for George HW Bush for President, and left the Dems forever after that.
In prior years, in Reagan against Carter and Reagan against Mondale and while still a full fledged Dem, Perry voted for Reagan both times.
This is a voting pattern that millions of Texans share. That were once Dems, now card carrying Republicans.
Many of them would like to have their votes for Dems, while also voting for some Republicans, back. But they can’t have them back, they can only look forward.
These are good people. I know many of them and some of them are related to me. They aren’t that different from Republicans, it just took them longer to sort everything out and overthrow long years of tradition.
Louis Gohmert is a great GOP rep from small town/rural East Texas. But prior to his win there, a Dem held that position forever. The faces would sometimes change, but the party was forever Dem.
Now, that district wouldn’t dream of voting Dem. And they are the same type of people there that have always been there.