Posted on 01/09/2012 8:25:23 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Is Rick Perry the Tea Party’s last hope in the 2012 election? As he prepares for his Alamo-moment in South Carolina, the longest serving governor in Texas history makes the case for limited government.
It’s a deliberate play for South Carolina’s once powerful Tea Party to come to his aid. During the 9AM MSNBC debate today with David Gregory, Rick Perry promised the Tea Party across the country that he would have their back against big spending Republicans. But will they have his?
Today, Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express promised on Breitbart.tv that the organization will endorse before the January 21st.
Perry’s proposals of cutting the pay of Congress and prosecuting congressmen for insider trading have been popular among Tea Party supporters. Indeed, in November, Perry was accused of “pandering to the tea party” by none other than House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). The Texas Tea Party, however, withdrew their support of the governor for his support of sanctuary cities for illegal aliens. An October Washington Post/ABC poll confirms that his support was cratering among Tea Party activists, placing him just above Romney and Ron Paul. Perry is hoping that South Carolina is a bit more generous.
Only a few of the Republicans swept into power in South Carolina by the Tea Party have made endorsements. Tea Party darling, Gov. Nikki Haley endorsed Mitt Romney and has been an active surrogate for the former Massachusetts governor as far afield as New Hampshire. Haley’s support in South Carolina, however, is cratering. A poll conducted by Winthrop University between Nov. 27 and Dec. 4 showed only 34.6 percent of those surveyed approved of Haley’s job performance, making her one of the least popular governors in the country.
Haley’s support for Romney may be pecuniary or payback. Romney’s “Free and Strong America” political action committee donated $36,000 to Haley’s campaign in 2010. More than 35 other Romney-backers received PAC money from the former Massachusetts governor before making their endorsements. Perhaps they were merely returning the favor. Or perhaps their campaigns were paid for that favor early in the process.
Thus far, the very popular Tim Scott has declined to endorse anyone for president. Rep. Scott’s highly coveted endorsement is seen as something of proxy for Senator Jim DeMint, the godfather of both the Tea Party and the South Carolina. In 2008, DeMint endorsed Mitt Romney, but in 2012, he has remained deliberately on the side lines.
Of the federal legislators in South Carolina, only freshman congressman (and Tea Party favorite) Mick Mulvaney has endorsed and he has endorsed Rick Perry. Mulvaney reportedly decided to support Perry after seeing his 20% flat tax proposal. “It’s very, very similar to what we’ve been talking about in terms of the Republican Study Committee, the conservative group within the House Republicans, and he went a little bit further than I think we’re going to go even. I was enthusiastic about somebody actually taking some bold steps,” Mulvaney told MSNBC. Perry also won the support of Bobby Harrell, South Carolina’s Speaker of the House.
South Carolina’s Tea Party groups hold their own convention in Myrtle Beach on Sunday, Jan. 15, and Monday, Jan. 16, the same day that the next– the 16th– of the presidential debates takes place.
Perry’s sure to be helped by his South Carolina advisors, which include former state GOP chairman Katon Dawson, who believes that Perry will play well with both evangelical and military voters who make up the Palmetto State’s Republican electorate. “Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidential campaign pockets, and South Carolina picks Republican presidents,” Dawson told reporters after Perry’s fifth place finish in Iowa.
Though there is no clear Tea Party candidate in South Carolina, Tea Party groups are pretty clearly opposed to Mitt Romney. Karen Martin, the head of the Spartanburg County, S.C., chapter and other Tea Party leaders put it simply in an interview with National Public Radio:
“There’s no Tea Partier that I talk to in the state or nationally that would want to promote Romney. Other than the people that have come out publicly and endorsed Mitt Romney and the people left over from his 2008 campaign, I do not personally know anyone that does not despise Mitt Romney and doesn’t hate the idea of him being our nominee.”
Governor Perry will be sure to keep proclaiming his conservative bona fides, especially on the Tenth Amendment, which is popular among Tea Partiers. To capitalize on that vote, Perry would do well to throw his backing to South Carolina’s fight against the Justice Department over voter fraud. He would also do well to speak out against President Obama’s unconstitutional recess bids, especially as those recess bids governing the National Labor Relations Board which is at war with Boeing over relocating their plant to a right-to-work state.
Which was insane! Because .......Much to the chagrin of Texas Latino leaders, Perry urged (even called a Special Session -- but they legislature dropped the ball and went home) lawmakers to pass a bill that would outlaw so called sanctuary cities – localities in which police refrain from asking citizens about their immigration status. The crackdown on sanctuary cities measure failed in June 2011, but the Texas governor also signed into law that same year the Voter ID Act despite outspoken opposition by Latino advocacy groups that denounced it as a law that attempts to disenfranchise minority voters.
And more:
The Truth Found a Voice in Rick Perry
Gov. Rick Perry wants the border sealed, drug cartels killed off and NO amnesty.
Jan 8, 2012: Re: “hardship waivers” ….”House liberals cheer proposed Obama administration immigration reform....."Becerra on Friday said Republicans left the White House no other option but to act unilaterally on immigration reform.
President Obama is right," he said. "We can't wait for Republicans in Congress to stop playing this nasty game of politics, blocking immigration reform legislation, which is tearing families and America apart."
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Rick Perry on E-verify:
“I agree that some kind of electronic verification system is needed so we can make sure employers comply with the law not to hire illegal immigrants. E-Verify is a federal government created and run program, and as a result there have been a number of problems with it so far. The Department of Homeland Security estimated the system could fail to identify more than half of all illegal immigrants.
But just because it has problems doesn’t mean we should throw employee verification out. It means we should make it work. Employee verification needs to be accurate so American citizens aren’t denied jobs based on bad data and undocumented immigrants don’t slip through the system. And it needs to be less cumbersome for employers to use, so it’s not costing them money they could be using to create jobs.
So as president, I’d work to put in place an E-Verify system that’s more accurate, less burdensome and really delivers the results we need it to.”
Mr. McKinnon was outraged. "No pretense of integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news gathering," he wrote in Investors' Business Daily.
But I doubt he was surprised. This is what the "mainstream" media did to Sarah Palin in 2008, and what likely is in store for anyone Republicans nominate.
But liberals will go after the Texas governor with special venom because he is anti- intellectual, prays in public, takes the Constitution seriously and sometimes carries a handgun, Walter Shapiro wrote in The New Republic.
"It's almost as if Perry's political persona was constructed by bundling together all the fears and phantoms in the left-wing anxiety closet." he said. “…
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Rick Perry to a reporter: YouTube: You got a name?
LOL
Depends on what’s in the tea.
THE ONE CANDIDATE THE ESTABLISHMENT AND THE FEDS ALONG WITH GULLIBLE VOTERS IS RICK PERRY.
HE WILL HOLD EVERY ONE OF THOSE VAMPIRES IN WASHINGTON ACCOUNTABLE.
GIVE US OUR FREEDOM BACK
VOTE PERRY!
But some Freepers will crawl over broken glass to assist liberals in this regard.
Maybe he is, but regardless the lowest tier candidates had better start thinking about leaving after SC.
LoL!!
Was Rick Perry actually drunk? A computer says it knows
…..”At a computer station in the back of the laboratory, the team was eager to finally show off its new system. Black put on a headset and sat in the pilot’s seat, where he began saying commands to familiarize the program with his voice.
He uttered three "sober" sentences, three "drunk" sentences and then a test sentence.
"Now it’s going through and training the system," said Narayanan. “It’s extracting spectral voice quality features, extracting prosodic features, intonation and so on, it’s now crunching, organizing it in order of importance.”
A few minutes later the results were in. The computer came up with a score of five out of seven, or about 70 percent. Narayanan said it was a pretty good score - about on par with human accuracy, in fact - and said it was time to try a clip from Rick Perry's speech.
They ran the audio and waited. The results appeared. Perry was sober.”…. Source
RICK PERRY is the last best candidate. PERRY 2012
I have no opinion on his condition at the infamous NH speech. More to the point, the “Tea Party” candidates haven’t exactly panned out in every instance. Haley is endorsing Romney. Brown is now being targeted for replacement. O’Donnell was a flop.
HE WILL HOLD EVERY ONE OF THOSE VAMPIRES IN WASHINGTON ACCOUNTABLE.
GIVE US OUR FREEDOM BACK
____________________
Bump!
Perry has a RECORD!
He is NO Haley, Brown or O’Donnell.
Gov. Perry is a consistent conservative.
lower tier includes newt
It has been a real eye-opener watching that sam.
I could have overlooked a lot of things I didn’t like about Perry, EXCEPT for the whole Guardasil fiasco. That one forever tainted my opinion of the man. Stunk of both chrony capitalism at its worst, and the overreaching of the government to strong-arm very young girls to get vaccines for STD’s. Two strikes and your out Rick.
Perry is the conservative we need. He should NOT leave the race while Romney is threatening.
“RICK PERRY is the last best candidate. PERRY 2012”
Amen to that. I was shocked last night to hear Chris Wallace say that Perry is the best candidate to go up against Obama. My husband said, “Well, my opinion of Chris Wallace just went up a notch.”
…….”The Gardasil [cervical cancer] vaccine was recommended the FDA’s vaccine approval committee, more than 6 months before Governor Perry’s Executive Order. All girls who qualified for the Federal Vaccines for Children program were eligible to receive the vaccine free of charge: Medicaid, CHIPs, and uninsured or those with insurance that won’t pay for vaccines. The Texas Legislature had previously delegated unconditional authority to mandate new vaccines to the Department of State Health Services, which is under Governor Perry and the Executive Branch.” Source Gov. Perry's E.O. [opt out] also made all required vaccines easier to opt out of. The Legislature moved to kill the E.O. and Gov. Perry made no objection. No one was given the vaccine from the E.O.
Well, he's right! What happened to the anti-Perry FOX all the time? The whole lot of them have been in the bag for Romney.
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