Posted on 07/24/2014 6:11:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
Over the past three weeks, one Republican has gained more national attention than any other: Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX).
He has been everywhere - calling up the Texas National Guard, appearing on network interviews, headlining Sunday shows, touring the southern border with Fox News' Sean Hannity, appearing on The Blaze with Glenn Beck. Perry has penned national op-eds on border security in The Wall Street Journal and The USA Today.
Gov. Perry greeted President Obama on the tarmac, met with him in Dallas, and spent the next day on the southern border--a marked contrast with President Obama who spent the day at fundraisers and excoriating Republicans at a partisan speech in downtown Austin.
How did Gov. Perry fully seize this opportunity?
It began on July 3 when House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) held a field hearing on the border in McAllen, with Gov. Perry providing witness testimony which dominated the hearing.
When it comes to border security, Gov. Perry knows what he is talking about, after serving as Governor of Texas longer than FDR was president.
In fact, several months ago, the state of Texas began a $1.3 million per week border security surge through the rest of 2014. According to Gov. Perry, the state has spent over $500 million since 2005 on increased border protection and efforts to fight gangs and drug cartels.
Perry has surged by making three smart demands.
First, he cleverly pressured President Obama into a meeting with him while he was in Texas, by refusing to accept a perfunctory and patronizing White House offer of a 30-second handshake at the airport. Perry refused, asking instead for a "thoughtful policy discussion." The White House caved and reluctantly agreed to the meeting.
Second, he asked President Obama to visit the border while he was in Texas. The White House stubbornly refused and that question dominated the national media discussion that entire week. Even Democrats like Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) went public, criticizing President Obama for not visiting the border. The result was the White House being on defense all week.
To put as fine a point on it as possible, Gov. Perry spent the day after his meeting with Obama on the border, receiving a briefing from border patrol officials and touring the border by boat and helicopter, with Fox News and radio host Sean Hannity in tow. The effect was a split screen comparison between Perry, on the border, seeing it firsthand, acting as an executive, and Obama, engaging in a partisan attack in a speech on the economy and conducting photo ops at a coffee shop and a barbecue restaurant in Austin.
Third, Gov. Perry requested 1,000 National Guard troops to be temporarily deployed to the southern border to send a strong message to Central American countries and help the border patrol with the influx of illegal immigrants pouring into the country. President Obama has not explicitly agreed to this request. He appears to want to trade this for his supplemental appropriations request, which Congress is currently considering.
Gov. Perry got tired of waiting and on Monday he order up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the southern border, to serve as a force multiplier and help ease pressure on the border patrol, who are scrambling to deal with the unaccompanied children.
Good policy makes good politics, and Gov. Perry is not letting this opportunity go to waste. He is using this national story to collect data and engage the grassroots - an online petition on border security that he created now has over 100,000 signatures in the first week. The political benefit to Gov. Perry will likely last.
He has successfully re-positioned himself as the leading GOP voice on border security - valuable political real estate in the Republican Party. Border security issues will remain on the front burner through the 2014 election and likely through the 2016 election. Gov. Perry has aligned his national leadership on an issue for which he has expertise and knowledge, with his own executive record that he can reference. While Senators may talk about votes on immigration and border security, Gov. Perry can detail what he has actually done.
He is on the front lines in this crisis, at a time when few Republicans in Washington have stepped up to propose their own solution.
Perhaps most importantly, Gov. Perry re-positioned himself on an issue where he had been crosswise with the Republican base in the 2012 primary. Now, instead of focusing on thorny issues like in-state tuition, Gov. Perry can redirect the focus to border security.
Gov. Perry continues to prepare for a potential presidential bid, with more international travel planned, public policy issue briefings and political travel. In fact, Gov. Perry made his fourth trip ton Iowa this past weekend. He was received in Iowa far bigger star in Republican politics this week than he was three weeks ago, with a burst of new momentum, a national platform and a second look from the national media.
“I’ll tell you one thing though, I’d kill to have President Perry right now instead of Obama. I’d bet hard cash we’d be 8,000% better off.”
That is not good enough. It wouldn’t be perfect.
That would be because “many on this site” are Texans.
We appreciate Rick’s charm and swagger— his masculine manner, but this is so politically timed, and ridiculously LATE, that one can shake the head, grin, and say for the umpteenth time, “That’s our Rick...”.
“To punish these young Texans for their parents` actions is not what America has always been about.” ~Texas Governor, Rick Perry
Note; he called ILLEGAL aliens "Texans".
No thanks La Raza Rick.
You are being too kind. Some are not so jealous as much as they suffer from PDS (Perry Derangement Syndrome) and regardless of what he does, it’ll never be good enough.
I noticed that and respect that
And if another governor had said this you, too, would be rejecting him:
“To punish these young Texans for their parents` actions is not what America has always been about.” ~Texas Governor, Rick Perry
Well said pwatson!
Different place in time.
If you are talking about instate tuition, many states have been doing this.
Just have to face it, there is nothing Perry could do that would make you change your mind.
It wasn't that much of a different place in time when you consider it was just three short years ago. As far as other states doing it, that does not make it right nor are any of those governors who supported it running for president. If they were, I would oppose them also as I am sure most here would.
And you are right, he won’t change my mind. Perry signed the Texas DREAM Act in 2001 and defended it for a full decade. Moreover, there is absolutely no credible evidence that says he has changed his mind. His long history of being pro-ILLEGAL alien while governor of Texas is one thing, but wanting to take is pro-ILLEGAL alien policies to Washington is another. No thanks.
Thx, Kas. :)
Rita
I am not only a native Texan, but a several generations-back Texan. I’m not only proud of my governor, but I defy anyone to put up THEIR choice and be willing to accept the same standards for criticism.
Conservatives (including some Freepers) are VERY good at destroying anything imperfect. Libs are VERY good at coalescing around a candidate;despite some of their less desirable traits.
So, we lose. They win.
But we sure showed the GOPe, didn’t we?
Reagan was a DemocRat and President of the Screen Actors Guild. He eventually became our greatest president since George Washington IMHO.
Let me make it clear that I'm NOT equating Perry with Reagan. I will however say unequivocally that Perry is NOT correct on every conservative issue, but he's far from stupid, he's a sincere Christian man, he has solid conservative principals, and seems to learn from his mistakes. He has a large dose of humility because he's a Christian - unlike most of our so-called conservative leaders.
There's a lot more context to the quote that you (South40) cite. I did a lot of reading on it's context, and while I dodn't agree with all of Perry's reasoning, it was logical and cogent for the situation that Texas finds itself in. He is after all gov of TX. It had more to do with the fight between TX and the FedGov abdication of border security (TX has to deal with the decades old FedGov mess under Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and ObaMao). It's mostly about allowing resident TX kids to attend state universities at state rates. To read more into it is to distort the plethora of public comments on the subject.
I'll take 1 Rick Perry over 100 of any combination of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, McLame, Romney, Santorum, Mike Pence, and a whole host of other GOP "front runners".
But he really hasn’t done anything yet! This is window dressing.
A good reason not to vote for the guy if he doesn't know the difference between Honduran or El Salvadoran and a Texan.
“We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, ‘we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.’ And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.”
Exactly. If Obama and Harry Reid had said that all here would call them on it. La Raza Rick says it and he has defenders. Incredible.
Just weeks ago Perry praised Hillary by saying she was a “great Secretary of State”. A solid conservative would never have done that.
Nor would a solid conservative have worked to keep Ted Cruz from going to Washington.
Nor would a solid conservative have opposed a border fence.
Nor would a solid conservative have critiqued Arizona’s attempt to defend itself from the ILLEGAL invaders from the south.
Nor would a solid conservative have attempted to impose a nanny-state executive order to force females to have injections of unwanted, unnecessary and unproven vaccinations.
A solid conservative would not have endorsed for reelection RINO Mitch McConnell, the man who has publicly waged war on the TEA Party.
A solid conservative would not give taxpayer-subsidized financial aid and instate tuition to ILLEGAL aliens and characterized as heartless
Solid conservatives oppose such loony liberal policies.
Perry is no solid conservative and his record proves it. You are free to your own opinion, of course, that is mine.
I have this argument with my sister all of the time - trying to live life based how she thinks the world system should conform to how she thinks it should operate and consequently getting jack crap done, or maximizing the desired outcome within the parameters of life's circumstances while working to make a better future where life aligns more with the purity of superior logic and justice.
See my tagline...
See my tagline.
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