Comparing Perry to Bush. Talking about how much Rove and Bush worked to get Perry elected Lt. Gov.
Ignored they had a rift and Perry went his own way.
This is yet another campaign theme the Perry people should exploit.
I just hope at least one of his staffer's is a FReeper. This stuff is gold.
I'm sure that will be news to Rick Perry!
["Perry was part of the "Pit Bulls", a group of Appropriations members who sat on the lower dais in the committee room (or "pit") who pushed for austere [Texas] state budgets during the 1980s."] Source
Karl Rove claims Rick Perry as his candidate in Perry's FIRST campaign for the Texas Agriculture Commission. [From what I’ve found this was their only collaboration]
Perry was a Texas Democrat (not a liberal Democrat). He switched to the Republican Party in 1989. In 1990 Perry won the election (against Jim Hightower) to head the Agricultural Committee (a post Perry was well suited for as having come from a cotton farming family -- raised and worked the land -- and had a degree in Animal Science from Texas A&M). He was reelected in 1994 to that office in a landslide (62%). He did not seek reelection for a 3rd term and ran for Lt. Gov of Texas (1998), winning in a 3 way race, in a hard fought campaign against John Sharp (D).
["Perry thus became the state's first Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction, taking office on January 19, 1999 until his ascension to the governorship on December 21, 2000 upon the resignation of then-Governor George W. Bush."] Source
In that 1998 campaign year, the G.W. Bush camp (which included Karl Rove) was campaigning for W's reelection for Texas Gov (1st elected in 1994) and was at odds with Rick Perry's hard nosed campaign against John Sharp for Lt. Gov. Karl Rove told Perry to soft peddle to lift Bush's numbers in minority groups, Perry refused. Bush won reelection as Texas Governor. Perry won office as Lt. Gov. (arguably a stronger office than TX governor).
["Bush won by 1.4 million votes, Perry by fewer than 70,000. There were harsh words afterward; Rove and Dave Carney, a top Perry strategist, now are bitter foes."] Source
Then there was this in the TX Monthly about the 2010 governor's race:
October 2009: “....It would not be surprising to find that Karl Rove had a hand in this somewhere. The Bushies are definitely in the Hutchison camp, and there is no love lost between them and the Perry camp. The tension (according to Perry team members whom I interviewed on this subject last year) dates all the way back to Perry’s race for lieutenant governor in 1998, when Rove insisted that Perry stick with a positive message even while he was being pounded by John Sharp. Meanwhile, in the view of the Perry camp, Rove was trying to turn out Hispanic Democrats who would vote for Bush, even though that meant they were likely to switch back to the D column to vote for Sharp. The Perry team decided that they had to fight back, Rove or no Rove, and they went rogue, going after Sharp hard. It worked.
...If that animosity weren’t enough, after Bush was named the winner in December 2000, Perry was insistent that the president-elect vacate the governor’s mansion so that Perry could move in, notwithstanding that Bush wanted to stay a day or two longer before leaving for Washington. I heard that firsthand from the Bushies at the time....” -- Texas Monthly
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“The potential is great that Karl Rove will have some desire to undermine Rick Perry’s presidential bid because Perry is not Karl’s kind of candidate,” said R.G. Ratcliffe, a Texas reporter writing a book on Perry. If Rick Perry gets in, will Karl Rove be out?
Ignored they had a rift and Perry went his own way.
Rove, and the Republican leadership, will oppose anyone at all who has a mind of their own. They're scared to death of Palin, Perry, and others who answer questions or provide commentary based on their own beliefs.
I think one of the primary reasons that Reagan was so popular was that he had very simplistic, fundamental beliefs, and he never strayed from those. He did not rely on Republican talking points or avoid broaching a subject. He was confrontational when he had to be and did not kowtow to political correctness; was not afraid of offending some special interest group.
The problem is, there are so many special interest groups today that if you're going to lead, you have to ignore them and do what you think's right. If you try to please them all, you'll end up being Mr. Milquetoast, not pleasing anyone. That's what leads to mediocrity.