Posted on 08/31/2011 9:39:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
At first glance, Labor Day weekend looks like it could be a lot of fun for Rick Perry and his fans. The odds of a Sarah Palin candidacy continue to shrink to irrelevance as she wrestles with incompetent local Tea Party organizers in Iowa over a long-planned appearance just outside Des Moines. Mitt Romney’s temporary triumph in securing top billing at a Tea Party Express event in New Hampshire, meanwhile, is being spoiled by protests from Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization. And Mitt is also looking a bit humiliated by his last-minute decision to change plans and appear at a candidate inquisition in South Carolina organized by Jim DeMint. But Team Perry would be well advised to stay very alert this weekend. The same South Carolina event that is being widely billed as a spectacle of Mitt Romney bending his knee to kiss the ring of Jim DeMint could produce a nasty ambush for Perry on the subject of his immigration record.
It’s well known that Perry’s record and positions on immigration represent the one glaring area where he’s significantly out of step with conservative orthodoxy. He has, after all, consistently supported a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, both positions contemptuously dismissed as code for “amnesty” by many conservative activists. Worse yet, from their point of view, he signed and still defends a state version of the DREAM Act, which provides in-state tuition rates at state universities for illegal immigrants brought to this country as children. He opposes any modification of birthright citizenship. And he kept Texas off the bandwagon of states emulating Arizona’s SB 1070 law. Yes, he’s thundered a bit lately at the feds for their alleged failures in border enforcement. But by any measure, this is his Achilles heel when it comes to conservative ideological litmus tests, even if it is also a potential ace-in-the-hole in a general election, where the ability to avoid a calamitous loss among Hispanic voters could be the key to a GOP victory. Indeed, anti-immigrant demagogue Tom Tancredo published an op-ed on the eve of Perry’s announcement of his candidacy denouncing the governor’s record in terms normally reserved for Barack Obama.
So it’s well worth noting that the co-inquisitor who will be sitting next to Jim DeMint (along with right-wing Princeton professor Robert George) at the Palmetto Freedom Forum event on Labor Day will be none other than Tancredo’s successor as Congress’ preeminent anti-immigration agitator, Representative Steve King of Iowa. King, whose views on the subject are so extreme that he was denied the chairmanship of a House subcommittee on immigration despite being its senior member, can hardly be expected to pass up an opportunity to bash Perry’s record in the forum’s one-on-one questioning format. And he may have an additional motive to highlight Perry’s heresies: His closest friend in Congress, now that Tancredo is gone, is Michele Bachmann. In fact, King has not made an endorsement in the presidential race up until now because he wanted to be able to participate in this weekend’s event.
If Rick Perry does walk into a beatdown by King in Columbia, and doesn’t handle it well, the political consequences could be pretty serious. South Carolina is not a state where Republicans are particularly enamored of undocumented workers or sensitive about the Hispanic vote. If the extremely powerful Jim DeMint is looking for an excuse to support someone else or simply withhold his imprimatur, watching Perry squirm while his buddy King taunts him with a hot poker could provide an excellent excuse. And even more obviously, King is a major powerbroker back home in Iowa, and is likely capable of stopping Perry’s recent momentum in the state.
In other words, it’s not so clear Rick Perry is going to have an enjoyable Labor Day weekend. It could turn out to involve a barbecue where the Texan is himself on the grill.
Great logic.
{I think we can keep him in line if he tries to pass something that smells of amnesty.}
Just like we have kept the won in line, like he hasn’t issued executive orders that all but nullify the current immigration law. I have heard crickets chirp louder than the Republican leadership, on this complete usurpation of the authority of Congress.
There aren’t really two parties, there’s only one. The Washington, DC Party. It’s a big fat two-legged socialist beast. And even it does the Texas two-step for awhile, again, that won’t change the direction it always heads.
BTW, immigration is but one of Perry's glaring conservative shortcomings.
"...It’s well known that Perry’s record and positions on immigration represent the one glaring area where he’s significantly out of step with conservative orthodoxy. ..."
It looks like we are about to find out if Jim DeMint is the real deal. Since if he is as anti-illegal immigrant as he is portrayed, then he and Perry have some serious issues.
Perry might wanna get a stomach virus to excuse himself from this event. Unless of course, he has already made a deal with DeMint. In this case, DeMint will prove himself a fraud.
I’m going with DeMint as the real deal. If he proves me wrong, then I’ll place him right up there with Obama.
Now where is your 'compassion'? s/ What gets real curious is to read what these Perry pushers really think of their illegal cheap labors... Their com'passion' is all about $$$$$ in their own personal bank accounts. They do NOT care about the rest of US forced to fund education and health care. Our 'safety' from the criminals invited in to do their trade is not even on their radar.
Sen. DeMint endorsed Milt Romney last time.
Rick Perry’s camp defends 1993 HillaryCare praise
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2770985/posts
Cost of Perry’s security team to stay secret for 18 months
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7631273.html
Rick Perry — king of corporate welfare
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/15/2360707/rick-perry-king-of-corporate-welfare.html
Perry to protect undocumented-immigrant tuition
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/07/legislature/4465044.html
Schwarzenegger, Perry, Napolitano, Richardson urge “comprehensive” immigration reform
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2763274/posts?page=1
Perry works toward increasing H1Bs...
http://www.globalmobilityreport.com/50226711/us_governors_seek_h1b_visa_increase.php
Governor Perry throws support behind H1Bs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9776360-7.html
Perry opposes border fence
http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/006987.html
The company Perry keeps
http://www.nclr.org/index.php/issues_and_programs/immigration/state_local_immigration_initiatives/arizona-related_legislative_developments/2010_highlights/governors/
DeMint supported Romney in the last election. I don’t know why anyone would think he would have any problem supporting some other RINO.
I won't hold that against him. I was mostly anyone but McCain. Well, less a few unmentionables. At least he didn't endorse Julie.
I hope they ask the questions, so we can here Perry answer them. They are valid questions.
It ran low during the GWB presidency -- and Obama done taken the rest.
I'm completely tapped out. ;-)
I’m more or less pro-Perry at this point, but I expect him to stand tall and take his licks for this. If he can make the case that his strengths are worth overlooking his weaknesses, then so be it. If not, he deserves to fail. That’s why we have this process.
Ah but in the 'purists'
(love to hate that word since it was birthed by the high minded moderates over amnesty otherwise camouflaged as 'compassionate conservatism')
sense of the word compassion comes from within, cannot be dictated or legislated.
I was accused of being a purist for not supporting Schwarzenegger.
Ah but in the 'purists' sense of the word compassion comes from within, cannot be dictated or legislated.
Agreed. Let's just say I have two kinds of compassion: 1) that available to satisfy government mandates and 2) that generated from within.
I'm tapped out of category 1. Category 2 is almost limitless.
who then. i have the same problem.
“The way I see it, if there’s enough Tea Partiers in The House and Senate to stop President Bamboozle from getting his way (ha!), then there should be enough to stop President Perry from going off the reservation on certain issues.”
Exactly! And Perry would be a damned sight better than BHO because, even though more conservatives in House and Senate could stop BHO on many things, he’s signed many horrific EO’s under the radar and would continue this, he’s appointed two radical, anti-Constitution SC justices (so far!), he’s using czars and cabinet heads to do his bidding by completely bypassing Congress, and his anti-US, anti-Israel, pro-Islamist foreign policy is destroying us with both friends and foes.
Like him or not, Perry, by no stretch, has a goal of taking our country down.
BHO does.
The simple fact is that we MUST have an electable candidate or BHO wins four more years and America’s done.
Yes, Perry’s worth the risk if that’s how it turns out. I think he’d hold his own in debate against BHO, while Romney would get shaken, which I saw him do in the primaries of ‘08.
That’s just how I feel about it.
Unbelievable to me. After so much anger and conservative rhetoric and ‘no more RINO’ talk these last few years, the GOP powers that be and their perfumed money boys are trying to shove another jackass down our throats. Perry is a left wing version of George Bush and one of the few candidates that make old McCain seem conservative.
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