[af_vet_rr]

There is no basis for challenging Perry’s conservative credentials. He has governed as a conservative. He has made mistakes. He has corrected those mistakes.

Those are not mistakes. A mistake is whenever he pretended to support people talking about secession. Once the media got a hold of it, he issued a statement through the governor's office saying that he would never support secession.

The other stuff, that was stuff that he tried hard to accomplish, he planned it for years, or he handled it in ways that made it clear that he knew people would oppose it. Being the first sitting Governor to support a Republican for the 2008 Presidential campaign, a pro-abortion Republican at that, and then going out of his way to campaign for that pro-abortion Republican in various states and on Fox News and I believe CNN as well, that is not a mistake. A mistake would have been if he said something positive about Giuliani and people got upset and he retracted it, but no, he went on the campaign trail and went in front of the news channels.

Talking in 2001 about more closely linking Mexico and Texas through transportation and working hard to get that through all the way up until being slapped down 8 or so years later is not a mistake. Bypassing the legislature to push the HPV vaccine, which was going to cost either parents or taxpayers or both $360 per girl was not a mistake.

The point is, these are not simple gaffes, except for the secession thing. He planned these for years, followed through on them, or tried to carry them out in such a way as to slide them through without opposition.

They are especially not mistakes when you look at how many people associated with those things and companies had close ties to Perry.

[xzins]

personally, I don’t see the hpv vaccine as any different than any other vaccine. In this case, though, parents had an opt-out, so I don’t find it offensive at all. If you don’t want it, then you don’t get it. I fail to see the problem.

Should the government be involved in health issues? Absolutely, when it comes to communicable disease.