Posted on 09/12/2015 6:51:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It would be an exaggeration for me to say Rick Perry is my friend, but I can say we are friendly acquaintances. I liked him and I have reason to believe he liked me from the first time we met, when he invited me, the late Andrew Breitbart and others to go shooting with him in Austin back in 2009. (Yes, Perry was one of the first major politicians into new media.) Later, I joined him at the NASCAR races at the Texas Motor Speedway, which was rather like going to the Grand Ole Opry with Johnny Cash.
By this time I was convinced I was hanging out with the next president of the United States. A lot of us were. But we all know how his front-running campaign imploded in 2012 in the famous “Oops” moment.
No longer governor of Texas, Perry spent the next few years doing his homework, boning up on affairs foreign and domestic that would make him a serious contender in 2016. Obviously, it wasn’t enough and Rick Perry is the first to bow out of the seventeen-candidate Republican presidential field. He did so in characteristically gracious fashion, saying: “We have a tremendous field—the best in a generation—so I step aside knowing our party is in good hands.”
One wonders how the other participants in next Wednesday’s also-ran debate — Graham, Pataki, Santorum and Jindal — will react to Perry’s words and action. Will this pressure them to step down too?
But more importantly, it makes me think about how our presidential election system actually works. Does it get us the best man or woman? Does it even come close? It’s not only because I know Rick Perry that I suspect he might have made one of the better — perhaps even the best — presidents of all those running in both parties.
Of course, no one could possibly know the truth about these things. No one. All we have is our guesses. But it is clear that in this year of the non-pro, voters were not excited by the record of a man who was governor of one of our largest states for fourteen years, a period during which that one state, Texas, generated more than a third of the nation’s private-sector jobs.
Maybe that says more about us than it does about Rick Perry.
meh
Not really
He is a pro illegal guy. As governor he made sure they got in state tuition and grants
He isnt alone..several of the candidates will make good pres.
I just wish he had made it about this time in 2011.
I hear you. Having so many candidates over the past few elections is clearly no advantage for us.
Perry would make a very good president:
* he had many years experience as governor of the best state economy in the country, one of the best in the world,
* believes in Conservative values and preaches them at every opportunity.
* wants to seal the border
* pro-life proponent
* he understands the threat of Islam’s expansion into the US
* he is a veteran
* he has strong Christian values and morals,
* he is in a good heterosexual marriage,
* he is a hunter;owns and knows how to use firearms
His main weakness is that he is weak behind a podium and a slow debater. Neither of which is important to me!
Reading through the 45 posts so far and I can’t believe how many are willing to gloss over the fact that La Raza Rick wants to turn the USA into North Mexico just as much as ¡Yeb! does.
The RNC/GOP wants to make sure we have no choice but to vote for amnesty. That is whay they flooded the field with cheap labor importers like Perry. We need to get the rest of them out.
We MUST have a President who WILL enforce the laes and secure the border.
You must like the Mexican invasion
His main weakness is his fondness for illegal aliens and his disdain for the rule of law and those who support retaining it.
Look, Rick was Gov here in TX for so many years. Borders wide open, nothing ever done to stop it. Every election he campaigned that he would close the border. Just another politician. He was good as Governor for business and low taxes etc but don’t even think about as Prez. Illegal immigration in TX is huge.
Christie and the other 1%-3% candidates should drop out too.
Perry may be a good man. Jeb took a 1.3 million dollar bribe. Technically, it may have been legal but good men don’t live like that.
I’ll always appreciate Perry for putting Abortion Barbie in her place and held his ground to get the anti-abortion legislation passed.
If Perry had attacked Jeb and the DC cartel instead of Trump, he’d still be running. Hopefully, the other candidates will make better choices.
Yes,just because he won’t be President doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be great for some other position.
I would’ve been pleased to vote for Rick Perry if he won the nomination.
Even choosing a black derby, a mustache and a cane as his schtick would have been better.
Leni
Administratively, maybe, but politicians without the political skills come undone quicker than others if they make it to the White House. But even as an administrator or manager, Perry wasn’t above suspicion. He would have had to be better and tougher than Bush and it doesn’t look like he convinced voters that he would be.
If you like Perry then you don’t know a thing about the Trans Texas Corridor crony boondoggle.
On the basic level Enrique Perryez is just another GOPeunuch
I have always liked Rick Perry. He is a states righter and I think a very decent God fearing man. But he is just not the right man for this particular moment in History. Its five minutes til Midnight and we need drastic change.
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