Posted on 09/21/2011 7:47:46 PM PDT by freespirited
In his first one-on-one national TV interview since kicking off his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry referred to Mitt Romney as “Obama-lite” and charged that the former Massachusetts governor is blurring lines between Republicans and Democrats.
But Perry told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that his differences with Romney aren’t personal.
“Oh, it’s business,” he said. “I just think it’s important for the people of America and certainly in a Republican primary to see the clear differences that the candidates have. We need to nominate someone who has a stark clear difference between the Republican nominee and President Obama. We don’t need to nominate Obama-lite.”
Perry did not answer a question from Hannity about his 2007 executive order requiring sixth-grade girls to receive a vaccine for the HPV virus, instead limiting his answer to another question Hannity asked in the same breath about his state’s policy of allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Texas state colleges and universities.
“This is a Texas issue,” he said. “This is an education issue, not an immigration issue.”
Asked by Hannity why he used the term “secession” during a 2009 Austin tea party rally, Perry said the incident never happened.
“I never used that term at all, as a matter of fact,” Perry said.
As to why he had famously been reported as using the term, Perry said: “I have no idea to be real honest with you. It was never a factual bit of reporting. It was shouted out by an individual at an event, at a tea party, actually. And I said, ‘Listen, America is a great country, we have no reason to dissolve this union.’ I said, ‘I get it why people are frustrated because they’re seeing Washington spending this massive amount of money, we’ve got a huge debt and people are really frustrated with what they see in Washington, D.C.’ I understand that, I didn’t agree with it, but I understood it.”
At the event in question, an April 15, 2009, rally in Austin, supporters yelled “secede” while Perry addressed the crowd, according to reports at the time.
Perry, asked about those sentiments immediately afterward, told reporters: “I think there are a lot of different scenarios. Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of issues is that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union, and there’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come out of that?”
Perry’s not exactly right about this piece of Texas history, according to the Texas annexation document up on the Texas state library and archives website. Upon the Lone Star State’s entrance into the union, Congress, fearing the state would be too large, passed a law allowing Texas to subdivide itself into as many as five separate states. Neither the statehood agreement nor the act of Congress gives the state the authority to secede outright.
Where do you phony Paul lefties think you are, the DU website !
> Rick Perry: Mitt Romney is ‘Obama-lite’
And Rick Perry is Romney-lite.
My beef against GWB is neither Katrina, nor Harriet Miers.
What was he supposed to do during Katrina? Camp out in New Orleans and sit in a paddle boat rescuing stranded people? He had no way to know Brownie was incompetent during Katrina during the first 48 hours. And we have no way to know how Miers would have ruled in SCOTUS.
Where I find fault with GWB is TARP and Iraq. $800 Billion of taxpayer money given to big banks to bail them out of their bad gamble in derivatives was stupid. But even more stupid was Trillions of dollars and thousands of brave soldiers wasted in Iraq on borrowed money from China to protect oil flow to China from middle-east where China gets most of their oil. As soon as the last American troops leave Iraq, Iran is poised to take control of Iraqi oil within months if not weeks. No wonder China is cozying up to Iran.
nope. You need to read about the press conference held in Austin Monday. Fleming leader of the TX. Tea Party Coalition invited Perry back to his state and complete unfinished business. Maria Martinez helped deliver 3 boxes of petitions signed by tea partiers over his sellout to cheap labor lobby. Martinez is the executive director of IRCOT-Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas.
Mittens supports Global warming, tarp bailouts, and gave us Obamacare and was born a rich kid from Gross Pointe MI ?
How is that crap compare to the Share cropper's kid and states rights Perry who has been fighting Obamacare and the federal take overs ?
Something Perry could have done was keep his mouth shut about Arizona's tough new immigration law..but he didn't.
Maybe those TeaParty people need to work on changing the legislators minds first since they voted against the law just a few weeks ago. They are just making noise for publicity.
I’m a serious Republican from Texas who’s lived with Perry for the last decade...........he ain’t Jesus or Reagan.
He is a Romney-ite RINO with a different accent. Not a hair’s worth of difference when it comes to real policy..
I’m just telling you. Don’t be expecting a whole lot from him in debates. Not there. Don’t think Romney is just a “media” creation.
Understand the fact that the two real candidates for the GOP are actual RINOs. Pslin ain’t running. She is not. Understand.
I never liked Romney but he is really p-ing me off lately. This sleezebag is an incredible phony who will claim anything.
The Tea Partiers that are of the Dick Army persuasion? Comprehensive Immigration amnesty schemes perchance? These are pretty stout conservative Texan Tea Partiers in attendance at that press conference. Many had driven to Austin from other towns to help testify and get some type of enforcement bills passed.They want action from Gov. Perry on the issue. He can call a special session,issue executive orders to do the right thing here.These people were putting the governor on notice.
Same here!
They need to get the legislators to change their minds before calling them back into a session. That will require work and more than those petitions. That is the process of changing or passing new laws first.
What good will calling another special session do just after the last one ended with a resounding no?
I love the double standard about using an EO to override the legislator here.
> How is that * compare to the Share cropper’s kid and states
> rights Perry who has been fighting Obamacare and the
> federal take overs ?
That he calls the illegal invasion from the South “immigration” is all I need to know.
They were all bought just like the Gov.... Bob Perry,Norman Adams (insurer for contractors like Linbeck),Dr. Leininger,Dr. Hotze,Charles Foster...all with a dog in the hunt. You know politicians are funded by the Ruling-Class, so no, the Tea Party patriots did not “convince” the legislators.
Perry looks like our best hope to dump Obama and return the nation to sanity.
See Zero ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQ0OGaoFjQ
Some of these purists are clueless on strategy.
hard stance?
“I like Perry but not his position on illegal immigration. He’s dead wrong on that.”
So why kid yourself this time? This is George W. Bush all over again sans the Harvard pedigree.
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