Posted on 07/13/2002 1:09:01 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist
The full article is very lengthy, so in the interest of brevity I posted below the segment of the article (for full article see link above) specifying the positions he took against the Texas Republican Platform. There were a total of 46 planks in the survey. Perry disagreed with 50% of them. He partially agreed with 16 additional planks, and fully agreed with only 7 planks.
Where Perry, platform diverge
Highlights of Gov. Rick Perry's responses to questions about the Republican Party of Texas platform:
* The party opposes ballot initiatives and referendum votes as a bypass of "checks and balances." Perry said he "would be open to initiative and referendum with a high threshold for getting on the ballot."
* The party wants only registered voters to serve as jurors. Perry backs current law that allows all Texans except felons to serve on juries.
* Perry opposes the party's call to abolish "motor voter" laws that simplify voter registration and its call for re-registration of all voters every four years.
* Perry does not support his party's calls for life sentences without parole for habitual felony offenders and the extension of the capital punishment provision to allow the death penalty for rapists.
* Perry does not believe there is "sufficient citizen or legislator support" to abolish the Texas Lottery, as proposed in the party platform.
* Perry does not agree with his party's call for abolition of the Texas Education Agency's regulatory authority.
* Perry opposes his party's call for the "termination" of bilingual education programs in Texas.
* The Texas GOP platform calls for "a single standard for college admission for all students based on merit and ability, without regard to the school from which they graduated or class standing" -- as opposed to the top-10 percent law crafted to increase minority representation in state universities. Perry said he backs the law to "ensure that top-performing students from all parts of Texas have access to our state institutions of higher education."
* The party wants to scuttle programs that steer government contracts to minority-owned businesses. Perry said he supports the current system, which he says "encourages purchasing from Texas' historically underutilized and startup businesses."
* Perry shuns the state party's call for a radical overhaul of state and federal taxes, including a national sales tax to replace the federal income tax and other major levies.
* The platform says it "is in the best interest" of the United States to "rescind our membership" in the United Nations. Perry noted his disagreement with "many" U.N. policies but said it "is not currently in America's best interest to pull out."
* The platform said, "The current greatest threat to our individual liberties is overreaching government controls established under the guise of preventing terrorism." Said Perry: "I believe the Bush administration is properly balancing domestic security and individual liberties."
* Perry does not back his party's call for repeal of the minimum wage law.
This is not due simply to the platform thing. That is simply the latest. I am talking about Perry's track record, which has been disturbing for quite some time. Just a few of the bigger highlights that come to mind:
- Perry signed the Democrat-passed Texas Hate Crimes Law in 2001.
- Perry appointed a liberal Democrat state representative as his first Texas Secretary of State. That democrat, Henry Cuellar, used his Perry-appointed position of Texas SoS as a springboard to mount a DNC-backed challenge to U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla. Bonilla is a conservative Republican congressman who has successfully held a marginally Democrat district along the Rio Grande for the last decade. Cuellar is his biggest Democrat challenger since he first won the seat.
- Perry's blown through the budget surplus he inherited with massive new state spending from the last legislative session.
- Perry campaigned for and passed a state constitutional amendment to provide millions of dollars in taxpayer funded infrastructure development to illegal immigrant settlements along the American side of the Rio Grande.
And now he's spitting on our Republican platform!
I'll concede that the Texas GOP has a very conservative platform and could reasonably understand Perry differing from it on a few planks such as the UN one (even though I'd personally prefer he did not). But some of these are CORE REPUBLICAN ISSUES that he is opposing! Perry flat out declared his opposition to the heart of the platform! He opposes us on:
- overhauling the tax system
- repealing the minimum wage
- eliminating affirmative action in government contracting
- Shifting education regulatory power from the bureaucrat Texas Education Agency to the elected State Board of Education
- establishing strictly merit-based state college admission procedures
- ending bilingual education
- sentencing without parole for repeat felons
- ending the Motor Voter vote fraud scheme
Most if not all of these are core conservative republican issues, and Rick Perry just publicly announced his opposition to every one of them!
Add that onto hate crimes, big spending, and his other liberal behavior in office, and I don't think it can be denied that Perry is a RINO.
I know this is an election year and realize I will probably be criticized by the "party loyalty at all costs" crowd for speaking out against Perry. But that's fine with me. My speaking out against Perry constitutes nowhere near the display of blatant disloyalty to ones own party shown by Perry himself both today and in the past.
Perry's behavior should be cause for concern for anybody living in Texas, especially Republicans. He is facing a strong challenge this year which we cannot afford to lose. But if it is lost, it will not be due to Tony Sanchez's merits. The republican majority in Texas will not vote for Tony Sanchez. They simply won't show up to vote in the strong numbers of the past with the reason being the absence of a worthy Republican candidate to fight for.
Flame or comment away.
While Perry was a dem back in the 80's, he supported the Gore monster in his initial presidential runs and in some of his environmental views...need we say more?
You're right. He isn't a very attractive candidate. But given the demographic realities of the Brave New Texas and the existing slate of candidates, what are we to do? And make no mistake...those nasty demographic realities are only going to get worse...
"Governor Perry would destroy minoroty hiring contracts and force English on everyone in our school systems..."
It's no wonder he's being mealy-mouthed about it. He's actually following the script of his predecessor to a tee. Perry's doing just the sort of stuff Bush was doing when he was Governor.
You can say these folks aren't conservative, but you can't say they're not popular.
I must agree. It seems he is also taking positions that won't destroy him with the Hispanic vote.
If you want perfection in a leader, there is Jesus. Other than that, we have to make choices in flawed human beings. If his opponent is worse, I would say pick the lesser of two evils.
If you don't those two options, then I hear hear Jesse Ventura (Reform Party) has his weekends (and weekdays) free soon.
And that is precisely Perry's weakness. He had every opportunity in the world to capitalize on this and get qualified conservative Hispanic Republicans into office.
So what did he do? He appoints a liberal Hispanic DEMOCRAT to the highest appointed office in the state, and now the same guy's trying to take out our only Hispanic Republican congressman!
When Bush was governor he used almost every appointment opportunity he had to get qualified conservative minorities into the GOP leadership. He put them on the benches and in his governor's appointments and it worked. One of them, Tony Garza, was Bush's SoS. He's Texas' Railroad Commissioner now and is a likely candidate to be the next ambassador to Mexico. Another Bush SoS, Alberto Gonzales, is now the White House Council and is likely going to be a future judge on the US circuit or possibly eve supreme court. And it got Bush 50% of the hispanic vote in 1998.
Perry's appointments are disasters in comparison. He's appointed one black conservative to statewide office, Wallace Jefferson, but that doesn't get any votes because the blacks will vote Libertarian before they'll vote Republican (if you doubt me look at the 2000 elections in texas - RR commissioner Michael Williams, a black republican, had only a libertarian challenger. The libertarian won in black precincts all over the state). His only major Hispanic appointment was a liberal pro-abort RINO who got booted out in the GOP primary by a conservative. Practically every other elected office that Perry gets to appoint, meaning the judicial benches that open up from mid-term retirements (and there have been dozens of them), has gone to crony attorneys from big city law firms. Many of them had never voted in a GOP primary in their lives before Perry appointed them, and almost all of them had never been GOP activists of any sort.
Perry is pro-gun, pro-life, pro-war-on-terror, and he has powerful Hispanic friends such as the current Presidents of Bolivia and Mexico. Hispanics now outnumber Blacks in America. Discard them at your own risk.
That is true, but think about the people that is likely to resonate with.
I can guarantee you it isn't the majority of the voters. It's the minority Democrats and especially the blacks. If I were in Perry's position, I would say bring it on and let the blacks be angry about it. I say this because Perry literally has nothing to lose on the issue.
Think about it. He is not going to get the black vote anyway - they'll vote libertarian before they'll vote for a black republican much less a white guy from rural Texas like Perry. In other years, potentially it would be wise to avoid the issue in order to not provoke their turnout, but this year they're going to be turning out anyway because Ron Kirk's on the ticket. Perry's basically got nothing to lose, and in fact would probably gain votes by appealing to conservatives who are fed up with affirmative action.
Same thing on hate crimes. I agree - it can make a nasty brutal attack ad issue. But again, who does it resonate with? The blacks, who will vote Democrat anyway and will turn out in numbers for Kirk anyway. Perry signed that bill and accomplished only one thing: pissing off conservatives who opposed it. The NAACP crowd shook his hand for a few minutes after he signed it then went back to business as usual. Perry gave them the piece of legislation they wanted and they thanked him by trashing him as the worst thing to happen since Hitler at their convention last week. And I'll bet $100 right now that they'll continue trashing Perry through the election.
Perry's doing just the sort of stuff Bush was doing when he was Governor.
I have to disagree with you there. IMHO, Bush was a lot wiser about the whole situation. He did some of the same, but he did it wisely. For example - Bush never had the hate crimes bill come across his desk because he made sure it never got out of the legislature. Even though Perry had virtually the same house and senate, he couldn't stop it. Bush also made his appointments wisely - he got qualified minority conservatives into office especially on the judicial benches. Perry appoints democrats, RINOs, and wealthy white trial lawyers from the big city firms.
You can say these folks aren't conservative, but you can't say they're not popular
Bush is definately popular. I don't think the same thing can be said about Perry. He hold a lead in the polls right now but he has been on a near-constant slide for months. Sanchez' negative ads are definately taking their hits and the reason is that Perry's support right now, unlike Bush's, is largely superficial. Conservatives are not enthusiastic about him and they're supposedly his base. If you lose your base, you lose everything else shortly after. And that is what I fear is happening with Perry.
I'm willing to hold my nose and vote for him, but I'm not so sure others will. Activist Republicans always vote, but the non-activist every day suburbinite Republican simply won't vote if they don't have a reason to go to the polls. As of right now, Perry is not that reason.
That's nice, but Perry is also running against a Democrat Hispanic with even more powerful Hispanic friends.
In 2 years, Perry hasn't done crap when it comes to accomplishments with getting the Hispanic vote and probably advanced the Democrats with Hispanics more than he did the GOP. Literally, as in Henry Cuellar.
About the only thing he's done to "attract" them is thrown the state's money at them with new programs. Some may argue that this helps him, but the bottom line is a Republican is never going to win a government handout contest against a Democrat. Perry can promise them all he wants, but the Democrats are just going to come along and promise the same plus more.
That's why if he wants to get the Hispanic vote, he's got to use another strategy. He should have appointed a conservative Hispanic Republican as SoS. He didn't and we got Democrat Cuellar. When Cuellar resigned to run against our only Hispanic Republican congressman, he should have appointed Orlando Sanchez as the replacement. He didn't. He gave the job to an old hick constable friend that nobody's ever heard of. When literally dozens of judicial benches have opened up mid term, he should have appointed (1) conservatives and (2) conservative minorities. In the majority of cases, he did neither. The benches went to trial lawyers from big city law firms.
There is a case to be made for conservative outreach to Hispanics, but Rick Perry is not it.
I don't believe he's spoken publicly about the platform. I'm not much of a Dewhurst fan myself, but that is mostly personal experience. The guy's an opportunist, which means he often does the right things but for the wrong reasons.
I guage him as more conservative than Perry, at least in office. And I do have to give him credit as land commissioner - he was basically the only state officer in Texas during his term to actually restrain his office's budget. I disagreed with what he did on coastal erosion vs. property rights, but overall have to give him decent marks from his term as land commissioner. Compared to Perry's disastrous performance, that makes Dewhurst look wonderful.
That is who the Rep. Party chose for you to choose from. How sad. A write in campaign would yield a better candidate.
Like "None of the Above" from "Brewster's Millions".
Pardon the cynicism.
I'm voting for the GOP Perry. Sanchez doesn't have a chance, I think (read as HOPE). 
Also on that I'm not so confident in Perry. Yes, he's probably pro-Bush on it. But when you get into some of the finer details and related issues, the record I've seen has not been very impressive. Case in point:
About 2 months ago there was a huge pro-Israel rally in Houston, as in 2000-4000 politically charged sure thing voters. Perry was in town that day attending some fundraiser earlier on. The event's organizers included 2-3 prominent Jewish Republican activists and they went out of their way to give Republicans an opportunity to speak. Cornyn came, and so did several local republicans including our nominee for a closely contested congressional race with an open seat. They extended an invitation to Perry to keynote the thing, which would have been easily accomodated in his schedule seeing as he was already in Houston for the day. Perry said no.
But if you've followed the local news recently, you've probably seen at least one story about how Perry's been attending the opening of things Islamic cultural centers and mosques in front of crowds with less than 100 people. He made a special trip to southwest Houston a few weeks ago specifically for the opening of one. Now, don't get me wrong - opening up mosques in Texas does NOT mean supporting terrorists and far from it. But politically speaking and publicity wise, it is flat out STUPID and especially when you are skipping out on pro-Israel events.
What do you think the average voter sees when a photo of Rick Perry cutting a ribbon in front of a mosque appears on the front page of the papers, as was the case a few weeks ago? And comparatively, what do you think that same person would see if a photo appeared of Perry at a pro-Israel rally? From a strictly political PR standpoint which of the two would be better for his campaign right now?
Without a doubt it is the pro-Israel rally. Perry had that choice. He skipped the Israel rally and he went to the Mosque. Now what would you guess any old average Bubba voter out in rural Texas thinks of that?
This is a bit of a non sequitur, but I've always been troubled by the "referendum" process.
It is, in effect, "direct democracy" of the kind we ought to be on guard against.
Now, to be sure, there ARE "checks and balances" in that unconstitutional laws passed by referendum can be challenged in court. But there is certainly no executive veto available that I know of.
Anyway, the referendum process has always bothered me because it provides a sort of negation of the argument against direct democracy which the Lefties would LOVE to extend to the national level.
That might seem like a "single issue" response, but to me it was HIGHLY indicative of someone who tries to govern with reference to trumped-up media polls and sensationalist headlines. ("Hate In Texas"! Films at eleven...)
Not that this occurence provided any excuse on Perry's part. It was stupid of him to sign that bill.
Oh, and I guess I don't really mind the lottery, aka the "dumb tax." Sometimes when I'm watching my 401K shrivel I indulge the urge to buy a ticket, especially when the jackpot's topping $20 mil.
I often imagine a Simpson's-like scenario in which someone tells me "You'd have a better chance of getting struck by lightning" to which I reply, Homer-esque: "Struck by lightning, eh..?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.