Some Things to Know about Governor Perry (Vanity)

Given all of the excitement for Governor Perry, I jotted down a few things last night. While people who oppose me will call them "taking points" they are no different than what his supporters use to defend him (which is what they have to do most of the time), and so it is fair game to bring up these topics. I'll be busy most of this weekend, but will try to respond when I get some free time. As you'll see, I have links for most of what I say. A few items are obvious, are conjecture, or are logical extensions, but not many. So here it goes:

Much as Mike Huckabee initially got lots of support when he threw his hat in, in 2008, Rick Perry is also getting lots of support now. Both candidates were considered successful governors of very conservative states and thus assumed to be trustworthy conservatives. However, as with Bush-43, both candidates have some serious baggage.

Huckabee, for example, was letting felons loose by the hundreds, one of which killed a bunch of cops minding their own business in a diner in Washington State (that alone may have sunk him this year, we'll never know). It was a horrible policy, with police chiefs, prosecutors, and others begging him to keep these guys locked up. But Huckabee figured he knew more than those people, so if he heard the right words from the criminal, all was forgiven. Huckabee also bought into the Global Warming charade, specifically buying into the liberal-religious view that God requires us to take care of the planet, so we have to do everything the liberals want, without question, and without requiring justification. Thankfully, Huckabee realized the jig was up for him in 2012 and he chose to sit it out.

Governor Rick Perry, on the other hand, as far as I can tell, does not carry the same baggage on crime or the environment. On both of those issues he has performed well here in Texas (meaning he's not soft on crime, and he's not an environmental nutcase). However, Governor Perry has a number of other issues that can legitimately lead one to question whether he's the best candidate. I shall list some of them here:

While Governor Perry has done a good job bringing up the problem of illegal immigration, and complaining that the federal government is not doing enough, he has done hardly anything at the state level, other than the mostly-symbolic deployment of the Texas Rangers to the border (it's symbolic because there are very few Rangers to begin with, so he could only deploy about 150 of them, total). He did sign a voter ID bill, but when it's passed veto-proof and more than half of the Democrats also want it, it's not too tough a call.

But when you get to taking steps that could make Texas unfriendly to Illegal Immigrants, that's where Governor Perry is quite similar to Bush-43. He seems to take the Catholic view that illegal immigrants should be treated with dignity, rather than as criminals, and while that view might be fine in an ideal world, Texas, with the rest of the country not far behind, is in danger of being demographically overwhelmed by minorities, and, just from a strategic Republican viewpoint, illegal immigration must be stopped. So there are a number of things that he has done and not done on the issue, all of which point to a governor that would just as well not get his hands dirty in what would be a nasty fight. That is his right, but do we want that as president? Here is a partial list.

a) Texas Dream Act. One of the first things he did in office was allow in-state Tuition for illegal residents - in fact, first in the country, I believe. As noted above, that acts a magnet for illegals trying to decide where to live. He has not done a thing to try to end it.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/jun/19/picket-does-gop-want-perrys-dream-act-too/

b) E-Verify Requirement. Not even a word in our vocabulary here. E-Verify threatens employers with penalties if they hire illegals. For example, in Arizona businesses are responsible for making sure their workers are legal through this system (or it may only apply to new workers there, not sure). This part of their immigration law was upheld by the Circuit Court. E-Verify is very simple to use, but a lot of big businesses (understandably) love illegals, and apparently they have the governor's ear more than the base. As big businesses proved in California, the long-term health of the state is simply not a matter of concern to them, only making money today (sorry, but that is just a fact, it doesn't mean I'm a left-winger...big business had deals with Nazi Germany in the 1940s...they are simply a-moral). The inability of California to get rid of its illegal problem has now wrecked the state, and they are rapidly descending into Third World status. Texas is next, probably within a decade, as the white voting percentage continues to get diminished. The rest of the country is 2 or 3 decades behind, but going the same way.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/e-verify-bill-may-find-new-life-in-special-session/

c) Sanctuary City Legislation. Governor Perry has been very slick on this one. He clearly does not want a bill hitting his desk...for then he has to take a stand on it. On the other hand, he knows how mad people are about the issue, as cops are being killed by illegals in Houston and Dallas who would have been deported long ago, had this law been passed. It's very simple for the police were allowed to challenge their legality - if they don't speak English, make them show papers, if they don't show papers, hand them to INS. So, twice in row this year, the governor has managed to keep this legislation bottled up in the state legislature...and has been able to blame those big, bad, Republicans that control 2/3s of the legislature* (more on this just below). The second go-around was amazing to watch, as it was a special session only requiring a simple majority to pass (Note, our legislature only meets from Jan to May in odd-numbered years; all other meetings are special sessions that have to be called by the governor, and he can call as many as he wishes. Also, all of the legislators have day jobs, as they get paid like crap when their in session, so they don't like special sessions and will eventually pass what the governor want - you'll see why I bring this up in a minute.). Basically, the legislature, during the special session, kept the Sanctuary City bill on the back burner until almost the very end. Then, when they did bring it up, they very conveniently needed a supermajority to get a vote on it (because it was so late)...and lo and behold...they couldn't find enough people. So rather than call a second special session, and maybe one after that (which would not be a first, as he called three special sessions to get his new business tax passed), Governor Perry said he was disappointed and that was it for Sanctuary City legislation this session. Well we were disappointed too...and not all that sure exactly how disappointed the governor was really was. The issue is off the table, and Illegals can still do their stuff without looking over their shoulders - just where we started this year.

*The question of just what could Governor Perry do, if the legislature will not pass the bill, often comes up. To me, it shows one of two things: Either he never had his heart in it (which is what I have to believe, given the lack of additional special sessions), or he is simply unable to get a legislature that is two-thirds Republican to pass a bill that the Republican base is dying for...meaning he is totally ineffective. You take your choice, but either way, I don't like it.

http://www.texastribune.org/immigration-in-texas/immigration/updated-the-sanctuary-cities-blame-game/

d) Border Fence. He basically doesn't like the idea, as it sends a bad message. I'll let the reader decide if they agree with that take.

This was a new vaccine that had just gotten past its trials and was being pushed very hard by Merck. The intent of the drug is to prevent girls and women from contracting cervical cancer when they had sex. Governor Perry mandated this vaccine on pre-teen girls almost immediately after it hit the market. There is a lot of emotional debate on this, so I'll list off some arguments on this.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/04/rick_perrys_gardasil_problem_110089.html

a) People could opt-out. Technically true, as anyone can opt out of the vaccine requirements. In raising my kid, of course, we were never told that and I doubt most people knew they could opt-out (and, in the vast majority of cases, they shouldn't opt out, or the vaccine would not be effective). In Texas, roughly 1,000 kids per year opt out of vaccinations. In order to opt out, one must swear that their religion prohibits vaccinations. Since most people don't want to commit felonies, most don't opt out. In the case of Gardasil, opting out may have become somewhat easier (not sure), but the vast majority of parents would probably not even have known their daughters were being given it, or at least what it was for. This leads to my next point...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948093/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/t/texas-governor-orders-std-vaccine-all-girls/

b) In cities, where condoms have been handed out, girls often find themselves being pressured to have sex, since sex is now 'safe' and the schools have given it their implicit blessing. In the case of Gardasil, while the parents may have been oblivious to their daughters being inoculated, the boys at the middle and high schools certainly would not have been, and thus they would have even more ammo to pressure the girls. Like it or not, that's how things work in the real world for girls with their boyfriends...it's bad enough, already, for the ones that want to abstain, now they have society telling them, in effect, sex is fine, go have fun.

c) The effectiveness of the drug is very questionable, as it only prevents some forms of cervical cancer. Additionally, as was discovered elsewhere, the side effects, including some deaths from this drug, were very real.

d) The intent of inoculations is to prevent otherwise innocent people from contracting communicable diseases, where they have no control over their risk (like Measles). The only way to put Gardacil into this category is to say that it will help prevent cervical cancer in the case of forcible rape. Fortunately (unlike Scandinavia) forcible rape is very rare in this country, and no one has put forward this argument in support of Gardacil.

e) The idea that parents should be in charge of deciding whether their kids should be inoculated in this way, rather than the state, is a no brainer for conservatives, which makes the governor's push for it so difficult to explain away.

f) I've put forth the analogy that anyone who supports Gardasil being given to young girls should also support mandatory birth-control implants for these same girls. In both cases the idea is to lessen the risks involved in having underage sex and pregnancy is certainly a risk, and probably a much larger risk. Obviously this argument doesn't sit well with Perry supporters, but they have simply no retort to it.

The bottom-line is that issue cannot be explained away and it is already creating havoc between Perry and the conservative base, at least based on what I read on this site.

The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) was a grandiose plan for the state to build a huge network (many thousands of miles long) of car toll roads, truck toll roads, gas pipelines, power lines, train tracks, and who knows what else. The right of way required for this plan was on the order of 800 to 1000 feet. At this width, the crossings would be, at best 20 miles apart, along with the exits - meaning that communication between the sides of these corridors would be next to impossible. The plan, along with the necessary Constitutional Amendments was passed with almost no opposition, although that was likely because very few people knew about it - and it was a Republican governor proposing it to a Republican legislature, which is very dangerous for bad ideas (more on that later). Once passed opposition remained very scattered, as most people figured the plan was like a new NASA rocket, lots of studies and presentations, but never any hardware cut. Well that wasn't the case here and then the objections started pouring in.

a) First, the original plan never had public hearings. Hearings were called later, in order to determine the best alignment for the already-determined routes, but, like Gardasil, no hearings, or public input, was ever solicited for the original plan - it just appeared one day as a pronouncement from the governor. So it doesn't take much to figure out that once the public caught wind all hell was going to break loose. Specifically, the biggest opposition had to do with the fact that huge amounts of land was being taken away from its private owners and essentially handed to other private owners (i.e., the ones well-connected with the governor). Now technically, the land remained property of the state, but the right-of-ways were to be leased out to private companies to build and operate the toll roads (which were the first stages of this massive project). But the leases are on the order of 75 years, which, means that not only me, but my children, and even my future grandchildren would probably be outlived by these leases. So it certainly seems to people like myself that he was handing over this property to private enterprises. Which brings up the next point...

b) The private companies involved (really just one that keeps popping up, Cintra, a Spanish firm) are not idiots and are not going to invest billions on highways unless they can be certain of a captive audience. In other words, they don't want to build an East-West highway through Texas just to see a major upgrade on Interstate 10 (or Interstate 20), where people can still travel for free (at least for the time being). So, in order to assure their return on investment, they demand monopoly-type protections from the government, which were structured so that any time the government does anything to a parallel right of way that affects their traffic (such as expanding a parallel highway, building a new highway, or, arguably, even repaving an existing highway), the state has to pay the private company for the lost revenue. Now these private highways are very, very, expensive, on the order of 30 cents per mile to drive on (in Canada), so in many cases the state might decide to simply scuttle public highways, rather than try to maintain them (and have to pay the huge windfalls to Cintra)...thereby forcing people on to the toll road. Which then brings up the entire concept of regulation...discussed next.

http://newswirehouston.com/2011/05/16/over-100-grassroots-groups-say-no-to-private-toll-roads/

c) Conservatives like both deregulation and private enterprise, so what is there not to like about unregulated private highways? The answer is that for private enterprise to be in the public interest there must be competition - such as there was in airline deregulation. In many cases that is not practical, so you have monopolies, but they are always regulated (such as water, power, gas, etc.). For example, the power company could triple their prices tomorrow for electricity (if they were an unregulated monopoly) and there is virtually nothing you could do about it, except try to live without power. Yes, eventually, solar or wind might start to make sense, but needless to say, the power company would price just below that - and take in huge windfalls from their cheap fossil fuel and nuke plants. The bottom line, a few very rich power company owners, and millions of customers having to live in the stone age, without air conditioning and without Chevy Volts (LOL). Likewise on the highways. While not a total monopoly because people could always drive on side streets, allowing monopoly pricing will increase the cost of limited access roads (i.e., what were freeways) a huge amount. This happened in Canada, where Cintra bought an existing highway and now people find that driving is very, very, expensive when prices are pushed up to monopoly levels (roughly 30 cents per mile, which would be like paying an extra $7.50 per gallon for gas). Why? Because highways are generally very cheap, relatively speaking. The gas tax is roughly 2 or 3 cents per mile (both federal and state combined) and still covers all maintenance needed by all state and federal highways, and even has a bit of room left for expansion, paying the deficit (thanks a bunch, Mr. Clinton), and paying for public transportation, carpool lanes, and bike lanes. The highways that were going to be built in this TTC bypassed all of the cities, so land was very, very, cheap (especially with eminent domain helping out). Building highways, again, is very cheap, so there can be tons of money to be made here (same reason for such high gas prices in Europe...people will pay through the teeth to drive). The question became whether Cintra should pocket that money, or should the drivers pocket the money by not having to pay that price to drive. Governor Perry has taken Cintra's side and continues to cut these types of deals.

http://dcnonl.com/nw/23663/tt (note, the rates are in cents per kilometer; multiply by 1.6 to get cents per mile – you can see Cintra means business when it comes to tolling)

d) The bottom line is that getting around Texas would have been crippled by these deals, in particular the non-compete clauses. Once the people figured this all out they revolted en-masse and the governor knew that his 2010 re-election was out of the question if he kept pushing forward with the TTC. So he officially put a spike through it, but unofficially kept working with the legislature to allow certain exceptions...some very big, that will still hurt us big-time. And yes, the legislature has given him these exceptions, in exchange for being able to say that they 'officially' killed it. And that leads to my next point about having a damaged governor (or president).

e) As Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) have shown over the years, it is much easier to oppose something dumb when the person doing it is from the other party. I'm not sure why, but I suspect the fear of retribution is much lower. So we had to endure the TTC concept for the better part of a decade, and we still cannot completely get rid of it. We saw something similar at the federal level with Bush-43 on Amnesty - it nearly passed, twice. We were very lucky to stop it and it cost us control of Congress and a lot of bad blood with Hispanics. But once the Dems got power, Amnesty was not even attempted (except for the Dream Act) - even though they had enough votes to get it through on a party-line vote - it wound up that we were safer from Amnesty with a Democrat as president, than a Republican. During Bush-41's run, the same thing happened with environmental legislation...horrible legislation passed. Bush-41 called it "trophy legislation", probably figuring that the country would be on their knees in praise of him by 1992...and we know how that all turned out. The legislation was written by a hugely Democrat Congress that simply wanted to destroy his chance for re-election and he went along and signed it. In fact, Dan Quayle spent much of 1991 and most of 1992 trying to figure out how to get around the same legislation that his boss had just signed...as they knew the country's economy, which was getting decimated as businesses tried to adjust to all of the new rules (including 'civil rights' laws, and wheelchair laws), would take him down in 1992, if nothing was done. In the end, of course, not enough was done and Clinton handed him his head. And the Sierra Club and other organizations that worked with Bush were nowhere to be found by November of 1992. In fact, by then, Bush-41 was considered a right-wing extremist by much of the country. That is why it's critical to elect people who can be trusted on critical issues, rather than electing someone deemed "electable"...which leads to the next topic.

Here in Texas, we have created jobs faster than the rest of the country combined, and yes, Governor Perry has been at the helm. Does he deserve credit and what specifically has he done? In fact, the main reason that he's on everyone's A-list for governor is because of the condition of the state, but when you ask people what he's specifically done, you usually get blank stares. So I'll help a bit here, starting with what his biggest accomplishment is.

a) Doing Very Little. While this sounds rather cynical, doing nothing is almost always better than trying to use government to solve problems. For example, Bush-43 tried to use the federal government to 'solve' the education crisis...that was a joke. He also kept talking about the 'ownership society' in regards to home ownership. And he did improve things somewhat, from something like a 65% ownership rate to a 69% ownership rate...but that was done by giving loans to deadbeats. And we all know how that ended...and we are back down to 65%, at most. Other governors, particularly in California and the Northeast, try to solve the world's problems by things like draconian emissions controls. But Governor Perry has done very little to damage Texas, at least for the time that he's governor. The time bombs being planted by the remnants of the TTC will, of course, damage us big-time, but Perry will be long out of office by then (and possibly on the board of Cintra, given some of his administration's very questionable revolving door policies). So, yes, the governor has done great in not doing anything and again, that is very often a big accomplishment when you get to that level of power.

b) Illegals. Relating to not doing anything is keeping Texas a friendly place for Illegal Aliens. As anyone who hires people to cut their lawn, or work on a house knows, Illegals are cheap and usually do very good work. Economically, these people are absolutely critical to Texas, and by being sure that they stay welcomed here, our economy does just fine.

c) Our State Constitution. One provision in our constitution pretty-much single-handedly kept us out of the housing bubble. That provision prohibited home equity "extractions" beyond 80% of its value, which meant that if you wanted to refinance, you were not going to cash-out on it as you can in most other states. This greatly limited the debt levels that people carried, and thus some of the insane parts of the housing bubble, like Option ARM loans (where you pay so little, initially, that the principal actually increases) never made it here big-time. Lots of luck here for Texans, and thankfully people long ago understood the damage that debt could do.

d) The Oil Economy. Unlike other sectors of the economy, oil has done great while the governor has been in power. This has encouraged lots of drilling and much of that work is Texas-based - again Perry has done nothing to discourage that work, so he does deserve praise for that.

e) Legal. A legal system that makes frivolous lawsuits rare. One of the few things that Bush-43 did right in his political career was fixing our tort system.

There are probably more (like having an excellent infrastructure, at least when he came into power), but I cannot think of much.

Well Perry can be elected, while others running cannot be as they are damaged goods due to the media - or so goes the conventional wisdom. The first way to deal with this is to look at Sarah Plain in 2008 (and no, I'm not shilling for her...but her example is a good one). Prior to being selected for VP, no one knew anything about her, and no one cared. Just after being selected the conservatives were ecstatic, and McCain even pulled into a slight lead. Then the media got to work and she was damaged (like it or not). In other words the media will tear apart any Republican who runs. The fact that they haven's yet gone after Perry does not assure us of anything, and Perry has a lot more for the media to work with than Plain ever did. A second example is President Reagan. In 1980, which I remember like yesterday, people, including Conservatives were scared to death of Reagan, not because he was a nutcase or dangerous (as in World War 3) but because Reagan would be portrayed that way...and he certainly was. But two other things happened. First, you had a failed Democrat presidency, and second he brought out the base, without hesitation. That is something that Governor Perry cannot do...there are a lot of doubts about him with the base and they show up every day on this site, and they're mostly not from me. So who's more electable, Perry, or a conservative that doesn't have these quirks - and no, the media cannot stop a conservative from being elected. You decide.

So, overall, as you can tell, I'm not yet in the Perry camp. I've purposely stayed (mostly) away from the corruption-end, but there is some very nasty stuff out there, and I can promise you that the Democrats have it, and will use it (and it cannot be retorted). I've lived here for 20 years, and the stuff that he's done that gives conservatives double-takes, along with the stuff he hasn't done (mainly immigration), convinces me that he would be a lot of trouble to deal with as president...quite similar to Bush-43 in that regard.

He supported a Gore who was anti-abortion and pro public prayer, a Gore who voted against banning interstate handgun sales. Gore was a conservative democrat at a time that Texas was crawling with them.

He supported Gore who was a democRAT, something most conservatives, myself included, would never do. When you support a democrat you support the democrat agenda.

Rick Perry endorsed pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani for president in 2007
- This is disingenuous

There is nothing 'disingenuous' about my statement. Perry endorsed Rudy with full knowledge he was pro-abortion. Conservatives don’t support pro-abortion candidates.

His Dream Act gives anchor babies the ability to go to Texas Universities at in state tuition costs.

And you're fine with that?! Do you even know what it means? It means that an ILLEGAL alien would pay less tuition to go to a Texas university than would an American citizen who was coming from out of state. That's a liberal position, not conservative, and it's insanity.

Rick Perry opposed the border fence
- In what context?

He opposed the border fence, a fence that would have helped keep illegals, drugs and possibly terrorists from entering this country. That may not matter to you but it matters to this country greatly.

- He didnt oppose it, [SB 1070] he said that the same bill would not work for Texas

He did say SB 1070 was not right for TX. But he also said "I have concerns with portions of the law passed in Arizona". And even if he didn't think it was right for Texas, Obama and the left were attacking AZ over the issue; conservatives sided with AZ, Perry did not.

Rick Perry opposed Obama’s stimulus plan but took billions in stimulus money to balance the Texas budget
- According to who?

According to the state of Texas and the US government

- He said he was fine that NY’s legislature and governor made the law, not that he was ok with the law

No conservative would be fine with a queer marriage law.

Rick Perry was hand-picked by Karl Rove and is an establishment Republican - According to who?

According to Karl Rove

So I’d like to see him stopped in the primary, so the country doesn’t have to suffer through him.

Do you intend to expose the warts of the other candidates?

If you spend half the time on each one as you've spent on Perry, we wouldn't have a candidate left standing, IMO.

I'm leaning Perry because we know so much about him that there would be few surprises left. He has a BC and I've already read his poor grades transcript from A&M...as compared to Obama. Obama couldn't have survived being in the Corps at A&M!

I watched Anderson Cooper last night and I think he gets most of his information from FR...I'm serious! He did a hit job on Perry and I've read it all on FR. Of course, the same could be said for all the other candidates as well because we tend to eat our own.

I would prefer to suffer through 8 years of Perry as POTUS than the past 2.5 of Obama.

I’d like to see him stopped in the primary

So would the MSM. People like you make their job easier.

Perry hasn't damaged TX like Obama has damaged TX and the rest of the country. Obama has done all he can to hurt TX...i.e., NASA, the military truck company in Sealy that was sent to a union state, the EPA on refineries, off-shore drilling.

Why don't you address some of that?

Perry and Obama don't even like each other...and I love that!

The only way this RINO will be getting any vote from this Texas household will be if he is up against the usurper. We know Perry is tough talk before elections and quickly slides into liberal mode after the vote count. I’ve already got my tagline ready for IF he makes it.

A popular Austin (TX) newstation had a poll up yesterday on if you’d vote for Perry. Before it got hit late in the day by some Perry supporters, it was running a solid 2/3rds AGAINST him. It closed at 58% AGAINST him. That should tell those of you out of state something.

http://www.kxan.com/#12395394

The facts are Perry wants the Dream Act and make the taxpayers to pay for the education of illegal aliens. And you support Perry. Perry does nothing to hinder or discourage illegals from crossing the border. And you support Perry. Perry makes speeches to a clearly racist organization. And you support Perry. Perry champions the government determining what healthcare procedures you must have. And you support Perry. Perry fail to support E-verify that prevents voter fraud. And you support Perry. Perry is fine with homosexual marriage. And you support Perry. Perry failed to take action against Sanctuary Cities. And you support him.

Hows that for a start?

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