Posted on 09/04/2011 12:42:11 PM PDT by Brices Crossroads
While watching Sarah Palin's speech yesterday at Indianola, it occurred to me that she is beloved by her supporters and detested and feared by her enemies for at least one common reason: She is an extraordinary political talent, willing and able to call a spade a spade and to do so with a combination of moxie and panache that is both devastating and funny. She represents a clear and present danger both to the GOP Establishment and to the Democrat left, the two sides of the same false coin which has embedded itself in D.C. as the "Permanent Political Class". Her supporters rightly see her as the one candidate with the charisma, bedrock honesty and courage to drain Gucci Gulch on K Street as she drained the fetid Corrupt Bastards Club in Juneau. The permanent political class can only exist on the oxygen supplied by crony capitalists, who "pay to play" (with our money, that is). Palin proposes to blow their cozy, little symbiotic relationship to smithereens. She means it. She has done it before. And it terrifies them.
In her speech, Palin alluded to the phenomenon of politicians who enter, and then cling to office, becoming members of the permanent political class, while proceeding to grow rich at the public trough:
"Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars."
She may or may not have had Governor Rick Perry in mind when she said this, but it is a fact that Perry--who never fails to brandish his humble beginnings as a rural farmer--has become very wealthy over the course of his 27 years in public office. He has had a series of questionable real estate deals with other politicians and with contributors that have netted him millions. His Horseshoe Bay deal, for example, involved State Senator Troy Fraser and two business partners (one who sold the land to Fraser; the other who bought it from Perry) and netted the Governor a cool $823,000 profit in 2007 on only a 300,000 investment in 2001. Then there was the deal in which Perry, while serving as state Agriculture Commissioner, bought 10 acres of undeveloped land in 1993 for $123,000 and sold it the next year to Michael Dell, a computer magnate for $465,000, three times what he paid for it. Interestingly, Michael Toomey, an influential lobbyist actually closed the sale for Perry (who was out of town at the time). Toomey later became Perry's Chief of Staff and, after that, became a lobbyist for Merck where he was instrumental in lobbying Perry to issue the gardasil mandate, which stood to make millions for Merck, while endangering the health of pre-teen Texas girls. And these are just a few of the scores of examples of such shenanigans, which the opposition researchers in the White House are poring over.
In her speech, Palin did not just attack Obama for his crony capitalism, although her mention of him in this regard portends one key aspect of the campaign she intends to run against him. Merely replacing Obama is not enough, she said, if the gameplan remind the same. She clearly had her GOP opponents, particularly Rick Perry, in mind, when she said:
"Now to be fair, some GOP candidates also raised mammoth amounts of cash, and we need to ask them, too: What, if anything, do their donors expect in return for their “investments”? We need to know this because our country can’t afford more trillion-dollar “thank you” notes to campaign backers. It is an important question, and it cuts to the heart of our problem. And I speak from experience in confronting the corruption and the crony capitalism since starting out in public office 20 years ago. I’ve been out-spent in my campaigns two to one, three to one, five to one. (And, by the way, I don’t play that game either of hiring expert political advisors just so they’ll say something nice about me on TV – if you ever wonder. You know how that game’s played too I’m sure.) But the reason is simple: It’s because like you, I’m not for sale. It’s because we believe in the free market. I believe in the free market, and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now. It’s a root that grows our economic problems. Our unsustainable debt and our high unemployment numbers and a housing market that’s in the tank and a stagnant economy – these are all symptoms."
Notice how she linked crony capitalism to unsustainable debt, high unemployment, a crippled housing market and a stagnant economy, indicating just how vulnerable Obama is to such a connection, given the number of his close aides who benefited from Fannie and Freddie, bailouts and stimulus funds. Leaving aside Perry's own personal history of shady insider deals, he has created similar "funds" which have doled out $633 million to such "start up enterprises" as Home Depot, Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms and Countrywide.
Perry's slush fund in Texas is classic "pay to play", and Palin called him on it, at least obliquely. If Perry had been in the audience at Indianola, he would have turned three shades of beet red.
Finally, and perhaps most damning of all, is that Perry's history of crony capitalism in Texas has coincided with an unprecedented debt and budget crisis there. Texas' debt is up 184% on his watch, from $13 billion to $37 billion. Texas' budget deficit is $13.4 billion a whopping 31% of the total budget, the fourth largest in America. The chart below shows 32 states with the biggest shortfalls:
By the way, if you are looking for Alaska on the list, you won't find it. Governor Palin's policies, including ACES and AGIA, as well as her veto pen, left the state in sound financial shape, and it sports a healthy budget surplus of $3.4 billion, plus 12 billion in reserves, and a booming economy, bucking the national trend.
Up to now, Perry has managed to disguise his gaping deficits through accounting gimmicks and the use of federal stimulus funds he received from... Barack Obama. That's right. In FY 2009, 97% of Texas' 6.6 billion budget shortfall was plugged with stimulus funds from Barack Obama.
Governor Palin's strategy against Perry is coming into focus. His record of crony capitalism has helped to swell the deficit and deepen the debt crisis in Texas, in contrast to Alaska, which she left in robust fiscal health. To make matters worse, Perry's use of Obama's stimulus funds to close his budget deficit compromises his ability to make the case against federal overspending. Having ballooned Texas' deficits via crony capitalism, Perry accepted federal stimulus funds to cover the shortfall. This is not a narrative for success in November 2012. And Perry is not the candidate to stand up on the debate stage with Obama and make this case.
The nomination of Rick Perry would remove, at a stroke, two very critical issues against Obama: First, the Corruption Issue. The "Chicago Way" does not seem to differ appreciably from the "Austin Way". Every mention of Tony Rezko or Bill Daley or Fannie Mae would generate a retort about Horseshoe Bay, Gardasil and taxpayer subsidies for big Perry campaign contributors,individuals who who contribute to him directly but also corporations like Tyson and Home Depot, who contribute indirectly in the form of large soft money contributions to Perry friendly entities like the Republican Governor's Association which, in turn, cut checks to Perry.
Second, Perry's use of federal stimulus funds to cover his budget deficits will neuter any attack he might try to mount on Obama's overspending, because it would expose him to the charge of hypocrisy. Any attacks by Perry will lack resonance, since he himself has been a conspicuous part of the two headed hydra of big government, crony capitalism and out of control spending and debt.
Palin will draw a sharp contrast between her dealings with crony capitalists in Juneau, where so many took the perp walk and were hustled off to Club Fed, and Perry's associates, who grew fat and happy during his adminstration. She will point to her cuts in the state budget, ACTUAL cuts, not cuts in the rate of growth, whereby she reduced Governor Murkowski's budget of $11.7 billion in 2007 to $10.57 billion in 2010, a whopping 9.5% cut. Unlike Perry, Palin didn't need Obama's stimulus money to balance her budget (In fact she only accepted 55% of the $930 million Obama offered Alaska), and thus she would not be fettered in attacking the President on the issue of his overspending.
Palin will clearly never be writing any trillion dollar thank you notes to Gucci Gulch, nor will they be cutting any checks to her. Neither will she be issuing any endorsements to J. Rick Perry in the near future. That much is clear. But it sounds like she may be preparing an ultimatum...for Barack Obama.
If he is our best choice apart from Palin, then let's vet him now, and find out what we can rather than wait for the MSM to blindside us after he has the nomination.
At least we'll know what we'll have to answer for if he is the nominee.
USS Alaska, they don’t even know WHO the TEA Party is. Anybody can say they are TP. That doesn’t make it so.
THere are other listings for Perry's net worth (most of which is tied up in a blind trust that he has no control over and which doesn't generally disclose it's value).
David Frum, everybody's favorite conservative (sarcasm), making about the exact same argument against Perry as you do here, claims Perry's net worth is now $2.8 million dollars.
Frum of course isn't attacking Perry because he thinks he's too liberal, quite the opposite. But I wanted to disclose that number as an alternative.
However, Frum gives no evidence for that number, and this link says $1 million, as does every other reference I can find; Frum seems to be an outlier in the Perry net worth guessing-game. Rick Perry: Net worth: $1 million
BTW, when he was a state legislator, that was a part-time job which paid about $7200 a year -- so he wasn't really living off the public for all of his 27 years, unless you consider $7200 a living wage.
As I said, I'm guessing this attack, which was launched first by Bill White the democrat in the 2010 election, and has been resurrected in the past week by lefty blogs and David Frum, will go nowhere, simply because making $1 million in 27 years as a 61-year-old is unremarkable.
And when you look at the details, most of the money came from a couple of very fortunate deals, but deals that were out in the public, and not offered to Perry as exclusives. IN other words, this isn't the case where someone privately sold Perry land which later was found valuable. His two big deals he bought on the open market, they were available for ANYBODY to purchase, just he was smart enough or informed enough to purchase them.
In the one case, the investment was a sound one to begin with, but then Dell (of Dell computers) needed the land to get to public sewers so they paid a pretty penny for it.
Interestingly, the argument there was that somehow Perry knew that Dell would need access to the sewers, but that Dell himself did NOT know he'd need it -- hence why Dell didn't buy the land when Perry did, but rather looked at it two years later.
In the other case, it was a long-term investment where everybody who bought land in the area made a killing, not just Perry. So yes, he did profit off good investment, but not exclusively, everybody who thought it would be a good investment and bought the land made money. And there doesn't appear to be any specific government action that MADE the land suddenly worth more.
But with all of that, he's worth $1 million, or if you believe David Frum, $2.8 million. If he was trading his political connections for fortune, he didn't do a very good job.
Which is the truth that some of her supporters may have missed.
Yes he is. In a head to head match-up with Obama There is no way in hell that Sarah Palin is going to only get 66% of Republican support, 65% of conservative support and 39% in white support in a general election when Obama’s numbers are in the tank now.
Rasmussen already produced a poll in mid-June that 83% of GOP primary voters would vote for the GOP nominee regardless if their preferred choice did not make it. And only 7% would vote for Obama and 5% for a third party.
Have you ever heard of rallying around the nominee. Since 1972 no GOP nominee has received any less than 85% of the GOP vote.
Against a Marxist, 35% of conservatives are going to vote against a Reagan conservative. That’s out of Alice in Wonderland.
In addition at the end of March 2011 Rasmussen found that 89% of self-identified conservatives were at least somewhat angry at the federal govt and its policies (code for Obama). Did white conservatives suddenly become pussycats and suddenly becoming enamored with Obama? Give me a break.
And 60% of whites consistently in the weekly Rasmussen poll have favored the repeal of Obamacare. So over 40% of these white voters are going to either vote for Obama or a third party and thus cut their own throat, since the chances of getting Obamacare repealed is nil if Obama gets a second term in office.
Voters are not that schizophrenic or that stupid but Rasmussen is paid to craft a false narrative to make it appear that they are.
Don’t forget last week against a generic GOP candidate Obama only got 40% of the vote and the generic GOP 48%. So you’re telling me you believe the 47%-35% result of Obama over Palin showing a 20 point swing because Palin is the GOP nominee. I’m not buying that for one second and neither should you.
Poor people by definition don't have enough money for influence-peddling.
Cheers!
I must say that you have presented information that is new to me. Well done, BC!
We know for a fact, that Governor Palin is squeaky clean.
(My God, her 26,000+ emails were sent viral to be scrutinized!)
I have to wonder how her rivals, including the Governor of Texas would stand up to the same scrutiny?
If it’s untested it brings a health risk.
"He does what is right regardless of whether it is popular. He walks the walk of a true conservative"
So which is it? Is the above sentiment what she really thinks or not? If not, why did she state it?
Charles, You wasted a decent bit of bandwidth to establish that you don’t know his exact net worth. He has definitely made millions in deals that are not kosher by my standards with legislators and with crony contributors.
These kinds of deals raise an appearance of impropriety. And the fact that he is steering hundred of million of dollars of taxpayer money via the so-called investment fund to his big contributors ought to give you pause as well.
He has created two funds. One, the Texas Enterprises Fund, gives out grants to companies, many of them established companies such as the ones mentioned in this article, to locate facilities in Texas when they otherwise might locate them somewhere else. The Texas Enterprise Fund does not have as part of its mission statement that applicants must be start-ups. Is there any question that the companies mentioned in this article received funds from the Texas Enterprise Fund?
The other fund is the Texas Emerging Technology Fund which has as its purpose to invest in new technologies that otherwise would not make it into the marketplace. None of the companies mentioned in the article received an investmetn from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.
So on this point this article is spreading inaccurate information.
Polls aside, I'll say this.
Palin's strategy of not being a candidate has impressed me so far. She can watch and learn the weakness of her opponents without having to defend her own perceived weaknesses. This is one-upsmanship squared - brilliant!
Having said that, Attacking from the sidelines is, in my opinion, a character flaw. It's like poking a lion between the bars of its cage. Very unbecoming.
Flame on Palin supporters.
Yes Techno, the money will flow in, but where as Perry needs to be vetted and stuff will be found that isn't liked, Sarah has been vetted. She has been vetted for the last 3 years in the worse exam possible of her, her kids, Todd and probably her mom and dad too
Heck she did them one better, and invited America into their lives with a TV by spending he summer with her.
And we still can't find a classmate of Obama's from College.
She is ready to go IMHO, her life has been an open book...
“He has created two funds. One, the Texas Enterprises Fund, gives out grants to companies, many of them established companies such as the ones mentioned in this article”
In either case, it is crony capitalism, since both funds are underwritten by the taxpayers. The companies benefiting from state taxpayers largesse are contributing some of those same bucks right back to Rick Perry.
You make a distinction which is irrelevant.
Yep, we true conservatives who were paying attention knew Perry had to be getting a payoff to require parents to give Gardasil to their young daughters.
And don’t even get me started on the unbelievable land grab he was/is behind for his super highway from Mexico to Canada! No doubt he or a shadow buyer purchased some choice property along the way.....
It has now been over a century since drug companies have brought any drug to market that has not been tested. Tests may inconclusive or insufficient. There are instances where the FDA has approved a drug that was found in other countries to show risks in tests there. But I don’t believe that any test has actually shown gardasil to create health risks and if you are sayhing that Merck brought a drug to market without doing nay tests on it you are quite clearly assisting it the spreading of inaccurate information.
“We know for a fact, that Governor Palin is squeaky clean.
My God, her 26,000+ emails were sent viral to be scrutinized!”
*********************************
Just so, Onyx. You come directly to the point, as always. Perry is backpedaling like mad with his supporters trying to say that the cronies were paid out of one fund and not another and saying well..there are no Tony Rezkos around.
I haven’t spent a single syllable defending Sarah Palin’s honesty and integrity because they are above reproach and everyone knows it, even the trolls.
"We've already established *what* you are. Now we're just haggling over the price."
Cheers!
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.