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.
I am not voting for a “Dream Act supporter” unless he runs against Obama. Then, I force myself.
Perry has been through all of this stuff before.
He aint skeered
Perry has to know this is coming. His whole dance around whether or not to get in or get out was just a stalling mechanism for his game planners to come up with the strategy to deal with this issue primarily and to a lessor extent his attempt at land grab for Texas Corridor and his problem with Guardasil. I suspect he’ll be ready for the challenge - and if he isn’t - well, we better not put him up against the media darling Obama anyway.
Anyone who shoots coyotes while jogging in Austin should be up to this task.
Perry wants the feds to stop the illegal alien invasion, and the drug war on the borderlands. He will also ruthlessly drive the marxist communist pan-leninists out of Washington and out of the government.
Lib media non-news; Perry is dangerous to them because he has crossover appeal (think ‘Reagan Democrats’ and blue-collar independents) and is therefore highly electable. They are desperate to slow down his momentum.
I am starting to believe this. I've read similar views lately.
-Six Whiskey Tango
SNIP: Mitt Romney’s temporary triumph in securing top billing at a Tea Party Express event in New Hampshire
Momney, Tea Party... No Way
Nice try, The New Republic. Don't even think we're going to let you set the terms of the discussion.
Guest worker programs have been around for decades. Nobody has a problem with that.
As for a path to citizenship, it depends on what Perry's idea of what that path looks like.
I think we can keep him in line if he tries to pass something that smells of amnesty.
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.
I think it's worth taking a chance.
From his piece titled: Yes, Perry and Bachmann Are Religious Radicals
In that sense, major presidential candidates like Perry and Bachmann really are something new under the sun. They embody a newly ascendant strain of conservatism that is indeed radical or extremist in its claims to represent not just good economics or good governance, but eternal verities that popular majorities can help implement but can never overturn. They deserve all the scrutiny they have attracted, and more.
How about this gem from this honest observer in his piece titled:Rick Perry: Why He’s Not the Man to Save the GOP
But Perry’s ultimate stroke of luck could be in appearing on the scene at a time when the Republican Party considers the power of its ideology, not the brains or accomplishments of its leaders, its trump card in 2012.
So we are a bunch of dopes just pushing ideology as far as he is concerned. Ed Kilgore can kiss my ass. Pushing him as an expert on anything is silly.
I’ll pass on both RINO Mitt Perry and his pro-ILLEGAL alien record.
Yes, we see through the doublespeak. We know amnesty when we see it. Add that to his record of instate tuition for ILLEGAL aliens, his opposition to the border fence, his opposition to Arizona attempting to defend herself from the ILLEGAL hordes and it becomes painfully clear, a pro-ILLEGAL alien RINO is a pro-ILLEGAL alien RINO, be his name Juan McCain or RINO Mitt Perry.
OOPS! Gov. Perry better watch what he says around Rep. King. I have met him and spent time standing right next to the guy while he checked out what is really going on on the Texas Border. I was running comms in the Suburban he was riding in and was answering his questions on and off for hours while we were ON the border as in toss a rock in the water and it was nowhere near any city, town or village.
Steve King is the real deal and Rick Perry ain't gonna blow any smoke at him.
This just got very interesting.
.
You’re promoting nothing of the sort; you’re promoting a second term for Barack Obama.
Perry amnesty ping!
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.