Posted on 07/30/2011 1:04:11 PM PDT by freespirited
Gov. Rick Perry, a no-apologies conservative known for slashing government spending and opposing all tax increases, is about as Republican as you can get.
But that wasn’t always the case.
Perry spent his first six years in politics as a Democrat, in a somewhat forgotten history that is sure to be revived and scrutinized by Republican opponents if he decides to run for president.
A raging liberal he was not. Elected to represent a slice of rural West Texas in the state House of Representatives in 1984, Perry, a young rancher and cotton farmer, gained an early reputation as a fiscal conservative. He was one of a handful of freshman “pit bulls,” so named because they sat in the lower pit of the House Appropriations Committee, where they fought to keep spending low.
But Perry cast some votes and took a few stands that seem to be at odds with the fiscal conservatism he champions today. The most vivid example is Perry’s support of the $5.7 billion tax hike in 1987, signed by Republican Gov. Bill Clements but opposed by most of the GOP members...
Almost a quarter century later, Perry, as governor, was faced with a similarly sized budget shortfall. But he took a markedly different tack in 2011: He opposed any new taxes, and signed a budget that made the first reduction in overall spending on public education since at least 1949.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.chron.com ...
No one can soft pedal Al Gore and remain credible, and Reagan's veep got 53% of the national vote, and 56% of the Texas vote in that election, we didn't win Perry's vote, he preferred Democrats.
For Southern Democrats in those days, it was a team phenomenon. They may not entirely have disliked Reagan’s policies. They just wanted someone from their own team in the White House. If it all sounds crazy or strange now, it’s the way things were for years. Living as we do in a much more polarized age it’s hard to understand how things were in the Carter era. And given that some people in the 1970s were still voting on things that happened in 1861, voting on the basis of what happened in 1961 doesn’t look so strange.
I don’t care if Perry was a nun. He proposed the trans Texas corridor in 02, attended Bilderberg in 07. We don’t need another stealth puppet in the White House. Didn’t we get enough CFR globalism from Texas with the Bush family?
You give Perry more power than deserved.
You are trying to lecture a Texan on Texas politics, 64% of Texas voted Republican in 1984, Sam Rayburn dying in 1961 had nothing to do with anything, Perry did not fight Reagan's party throughout the Reagan Revolution as some sort of monument to a guy that died when Perry was 11 years old.
Didn’t you support Perry in the Governor race against Kay Bailey Hutchinson? I did, and Palin did also.
Sarah also says nice things about McCain and is dead wrong.
Yet Rick Perry thought Al Gore, punk son of a rich elitist Demonrat, who frittered away his time at Harvard smoking dope, then flunked out of divinity and law school, was a better Presidential choice than Reagan's choice for VP, George H.W. Bush, WW 2 hero and former CIA Chief.
Usually the most despicable sinners make the most devout Christians. When one asks Jesus and Lord into their hearts, a incredible transformation takes place. Perry and his family have been members of Tarrytown United Methodist Church since the 1990s. This church is not the typical United Methodist church. It is largely in the non-denominational, evangelical style of mega-church with power point sermons, rock band song ministry, and large screen TVs. It is the same church that President Bush attended. It has changed the lives of the thousands that have attended. I am sure the Lord forgave Rick Perry for being a DemonRAT.
As someone who went back into military service because of Reagan, I shudder to think how our Cold War efforts and momentum might have been derailed by President Al Gore in 1988, what violence and chaos and perhaps even recovery may have come from his being at the helm during what became the closing years of the USSR and the collapsing of the Empire.
As a recovering former Methodist, I regard that denomination as pretty much a joke today. The fact that W. Bush was a member just confirms that belief.
You betcha!
My story is similar. Was a braindead liberal in my youth. Ronald Reagan helped me see the light.
I think with McCain it’s different, it’s her way of thanking him for elevating the nations awareness of her.
She owes Perry no such gratitude, so her support for him is far more genuine, IMO.
The elderly man took my father to hear RR in a nearby town...and the rest is history. Even then they didn't advertise they voted R because my dad was in business...and it wouldn't have been good.
Dems can be nasty mean.
The county I live in has never had a county wide elected Republican. Since Ann Richards the GOP candidates for governor and POTUS have carried our county but Dems win Co. offices..and they vote Repub for state and fed offices.
Wouldn't surprise me to learn some are Tea Party members.
Not a real bad stream-of-conciousness interpretation of history, but you really need to re-think this line “So they spent most of his term trying to undermine him (LBJ), to the point where he refused to run for reelection.”
Reality:
LBJ was so unpopular because of his war, he knew he could not win his own primary - exactly as Truman was primaried out 16 years before because of his own war in Korea.
I would say that such immunizations today are just as important as immunizations against Polio were in the 1950s. They took out out of class and lined us up in the cafeteria for Polio shots. I saw people lined up in the halls of the hospital living in Iron Lungs. Even though the HPV is not necessary if everyone had sex only with the partner they married, would you trust your life to a spouse who lied about their sexual history? If I were a woman, getting three shots for a lifetime of protection is worth it given the lying men who would say anything for that “test drive” before that trip to the altar.
It is many times that religious beliefs have interfered with medial/scientific applications. In the case of abortion, Christian beliefs that end such a practice is a good thing. But not all medical practices are bad. You would not have prevented others from living in a Iron Lung because of religious beliefs against the Polio vaccine even if it was found out that Polio was transmitted by sex.
I wrote that Tarrytown United Methodist Church “is largely in the non-denominational, evangelical style of mega-church with power point sermons, rock band song ministry, and large screen TVs.” This is not the typical United Methodist Church. I imagine it is the type of church that you found after you became a “a recovering former Methodist.” It was in the 1990s that Perry too became “a recovering former Methodist” when he joined this church. I believe it transformed the lives of President George W. Bush as it transformed the Rick Perry family. Where President Bush gave up his life of alcohol addiction, Rick Perry became a conservative. God is good.
Rick Perry became “Al Gores’s campaign manager against Reagan’s veep in 1988.” Question: What transformed Rick Perry in the 1990s?
The last time I was in a United Methodist Church, the young female (which is un-Biblical to start with) minister preached that we should vote for politicians who gave govt. aid to "the poor." That's a complete perversion of the Christian doctrine of charity. The Wesleys would be appalled at what has become of Methodism, just as the Founding Fathers would be at what has become of their Republic.
W. Bush was correctly identified by Jeffrey Hart as a "Christian socialist," not a conservative. The Gardasil fiasco (along with other facts) suggests that Perry is not a conservative either. Gardasil was a totalitarian nanny-state measure.
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