Posted on 05/27/2011 9:01:05 PM PDT by smoothsailing
Published May 27, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Maybe Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he’s decided to test the waters on a presidential run just because he’s feels left out.
For all the attention paid to the presidential possibilities of two members of the House (Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann) and a reality show host (you know who), you’d never know that the Republicans had on their bench the three-term governor of the state with the nation’s best economy and the largest Republican population.
But for some reason, when Perry told people he wasn’t running, reporters believed him. If Chris Christie even flies over Iowa, the blogosphere goes into meltdown mode, but the political press for some reason mostly took Perry at his word.
It seems strange that they would have.
Perry, who has been governor for more than a decade, is a favorite of the Tea Party movement for his tough stands on state sovereignty, border security, taxes and gun rights. Anybody who packs heat when he jogs so he can blow away coyotes that mess with his Labrador retriever and hangs out with Ted Nugent at a Tax Day rally is going to have serious street cred with the Republican base.
As the Perry talk heats up, these primary election positives will be reinforced by liberals who find his Texas-fried politics to be repellant. Every time Democratic cable news talkers remind viewers that Perry once warned that Texas might secede from the union if Washington kept piling on new federal powers, somewhere in Iowa or South Carolina a Republican primary voter thinks, “Not bad.” When Perry gets chided for declining photo-ops with President Obama on visits to the state, somewhere in New Hampshire a guy...
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After all the negative comments from Texas Freepers about Perry, it sure makes me wonder why Ruch seems to like Perry so much.
I don’t know, how bout ‘splainin it to us.
Veto is far different than being able to initiate or sculpture Bills before the Legislature or pick and choose Legislative Leadership. Compared to most states, Texas Gov is much less in total control.
Regardless, how does this affect Perry’s chances? I say because the Texas Governors have to “work with” the legislature rather than dictating, would make for a better President.
I think you’ll find a lot of Texas Freepers here posting on Perry are mo-betta described as Libertarian, not Conservative.
No matter what they think, wish and hope, Libertarian will never be a major party or position or President because too many Americans use a bit of practical common-sense when it comes to governing.
Ditto!
Minnesota politics is a good example to follow???? Not unless your the Personnel Director for Barnum and Bailey.
The Bushes hate Perry, so that certainly isn’t it.
Why do I keep getting the feeling that deep in the bowels of the RINO bunker, the real plan is to run Willard Romney as a stalking-horse for Rick Perry? Could it be that they will keep propping up Willard until the last minute, then pretend to select Perry as a “concession” to the conservatives and tea party people? Inquiring minds want to know...
Apparently so.
We do indeed have a two-third majority in the House and a liberal Speaker. Unfortunately he had the unanimous support of the Democratic minority and enough Republicans to be re-elected as Speaker. Efforts to get a party caucus to choose a canadidate ala the US House failed, and Strauss was able to use the usual lobbying methods to prevent this. To blame Perry for this is disingenueous. Furthermore the Lt. Governor has far more power in this state than the Governor, whose office has mor influence than constitutional powers.
“Did Perry lobby behind the scenes for Joe Straus to continue to be the Speaker of the House? I’m serious — I do not know if he did or not. The House members themselves vote on who is the Speaker. Perry can’t veto their decision on Speaker.”
Fair question...we have no way to know. But we do know that after 2008 the Republicans had a very slim majority in the House. Strauss rounded up a couple of RINOs, and then teamed with all of the DEMOCRATS to be elected Speaker (replacing a solid conservative). That should exclude him from Republican leadership COMPLETELY, in the future.
So 2010 comes around and Strauss runs again for leader. The conservatives alone have a majority in the House, and can easily drive him out - but they don’t - and he proceeds to carry out a VERY LAME agenda. In fact, the only voice that I heard back then saying Strauss should go was State Senator Dan Patrick...not a peep from Perry. As to all of those conservatives voting for Strauss in 2010...it is VERY HARD to vote against your own governor’s wishes, because of the leverage he has...and they did not.
So we had a really crappy session and only got a few medium-good items passed (like Voter ID), rather than the important stuff that I mentioned earlier. Heck we couldn’t even put a block on Sanctuary Cities.
And I will ALWAYS place the blame on the sitting governor, when he has a 65% majority in the state legislature.
“I just found out in the past few days that a foreign company that partners with Cintra went and bought over 40 local newspapers up and down the main proposed TTC route.
That sent a chill down my spine, and it explained a lot of things. “
Makes PERFECT sense, they’re a dime a dozen and a PERFECT way to Astroturf (i.e., make it look like locals are supporting it, in this case).
“You’re bashing Pawlenty for promising conservatives some red meat and then forgetting about it after he re-elected? Seriously? “
You may have me mixed up. I certainly blasted Perry (for years) and Daniels (while he was being pushed by the MSM), and Huckabee...but not Pawlenty, other than making fun of his name and his name ID a bit, and that was a while ago.
I’ll GLADLY take Pawlenty over just about anyone else running...and I’m getting to like him more and more.
Perry did that in 1988 when Perry was a Democrat. He switched to Republican in 1989, perhaps after realizing Republicans were where power was going to be in Texas in the future. We've benefited in the past from ex-Democrats like Reagan or even Phil Gramm.
He claims to have held down taxes and reformed the property tax but I’d like him to explain why when we bought our house, the taxes equaled two weeks of our take home pay but for the last few years we’ve struggled with property taxes equalling two MONTHS of our take home pay.
If your income was constant you are talking about a roughly four-fold increase in your property tax. Over what period of years was this? Did you have less income for the last few years than you had before? Did you make major improvements to your property or did the appraisal district discover major improvements that hadn't been disclosed before? Or did you buy a more expensive house in the interim and now struggle to pay the property tax on the new house?
The appraisal on my Texas house went up more than 10 percent in 2010, but the actual tax increase was limited by law to 10 percent a year. Fortunately, for 2011 the appraisal went down and my taxes will go down again. I had pointed out flaws in calculating the appraised value of my house to appraiser staff.
You might be interested in the following 2007 statement from Perry following the 2006 reduction in property tax increases. See: More Property Tax Reform Needed in Texas:
In order to give Texans a say before raising property taxes, we need additional appraisal reform. Otherwise the recent property cuts carved out in the 2006 special session will be eaten away in the next few years because of rising property values.
To have true, lasting property tax relief for property owners in Texas both sides of the tax equation must be addressed. Your tax bill is a product of two factors, the tax rate and the taxable value (determined by appraisal). The massive property tax reform legislation that passed in 2006 was sweeping in scope yet still only tackled half the property tax equation, the tax-rate side, and left future legislatures with the responsibility to address the other half of the formula, appraisals. Last year, a task force I created recommended ways to soften the effects of rising property values through appraisal reform, but the legislature chose to not make significant changes to the appraisal system.
Hopefully, the budget bill will pass today and we will actually reduce state government spending. That is a plus as is voter ID. However, I'd rather not have seen them dip into the rainy day fund.
The Texas House, where the big Republican majority is, passed the sanctuary cities bill, or so I thought. Perry had made passing it one of six emergency items needing passage early to keep it out of the last minute clog of legislation before the session ends. Will it pass the Senate despite Democrat opposition and stalling tactics? I don't know.
A lot of us in Texas who are conservatives will tell you the same thing, and would tell you Perry would NOT be a good Presidential candidate. And that he would not be the right ‘fit’ for it.
Perry talks a good talk, but is a politician through and through, and has his warts.
Tough on the border rhetorically but he and other texas leaders are wimps when it comes to getting tough on immigration. He was quite two-faced on it, calling for getting tough on border during an election then afterwards saying we didnt need a border fence.
His problem is the cheap-labor homebuilders who pay the Texas GOP bills are against real immigration enforcement, and the Texas GOP is afraid to go against LULAC and the hispanic ‘lobby’ for fear of the hispanic vote. it was thrilling to see hispanic GOP State Reps vote yes on Voter ID, but non-thrilling to see that even a watered-down anti-sanctuary city bill cant get passed and even a GOP-dominated Texas statehouse will keep in in-state tuition and freebies for illegal immigrants.
Great on lawsuit reform. Good on taxes. Bad on actually advancing conservative agenda elsewhere.
Take on Big Education? ROFLMAO. Another area where Perry = RINO Straus = Bush = ZERO progress. Teachers unions have great power in Texas and there is no progress on vouchers.
Perry’s not our biggest problem, its with the RINOs who gave us Speaker Straus and so we dont have any conservative leadership in the Texas House. Its pathetic.
There are enough former Democrats who talk prolife progun and anti-tax and think thats the sum of being conservative, allowing the liberal institutions to grow stronger. They are the problem.
Some call Perry a RINO. I wont. He’s good enough on life (passing many life bills), Tea Partied enough and talked up the 10th amendment enough to prove himself at least awake on the issue of state sovereignty. I dont know where the policy ends and posturing starts with him is my issue with him. But that’s the flipside of being a good politician.
Plus, Perry is an Aggie, which to liberals means “as dumb as Sarah Palin”. Well, Perry is a slick and good-looking enough they call him gov Goodhair, but dumb he aint.
I think a Palin/Perry ticket would could cardiac arrest in DC, and that elites would go bonkers. I’d pay money to see that but the risk is that the ticket goes down in flames as the northeast and suburbanites outside the deep south reject those cultural ‘vibes’.
I tried to say what you said here, but you said it much more concisely and much better. Gov Perry's recovery and his re-election in 2010 is a testament to good political skills. This guy is as good as Bill Clinton as a politician. But for exactly that reason, some of us real conservatives are wary of him.
And you just said it best of all.
You are right...and I agree the reduction is good.
On sanctuary cities, if it was a SUCH a big priority, he would have simply told the Senate to waive the super-majority rule (which they any conservative would have done at the beginning of the senate)...but he didn’t.
I realize that the Senate didn’t have to listen to him, but he simply made no effort either.
You may like the idea of being sealed off from Mexico, but the fact is that a lot of trade comes from there. The object of the corrider was, ultimately, to gain a Pacific Coast port for Texas. It would also make the DFW area a major, major rail center.
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