Betting on Rick Perry - a winner in a GOP year, with no need in the world to win liberal approval

The American Spectator | October 2011 | John H. Fund

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[excerpt of new issue not yet online]

IT WILL BE THE JOBS ISSUE—and Texas’s record in creating them—that will define Rick Perry’s presidential run. Since he became governor in 2001, the U.S. as a whole has had a net loss of private-sector jobs, while Texas—which has only 8 percent of the nation’s population—has had a net gain of 825,000 jobs.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, told me that if you look at the number of jobs created since the recession technically ended in June 2009, Texas has accounted for 48 percent of net new jobs created in the U.S.

Fisher also disparages claims that the jobs are all low-paying jobs at McDonald’s or Walmart, paying the minimum wage, or that they were primarily caused by the oil and natural gas boom. According to Tom Pauken of the Texas Work Force Commission, the annual median wage in Texas in 2010 for all occupations was $31,500 a year, only 7 percent below the national average. That difference is easily explained by the fact that Texas has a younger workforce than most states and a higher percentage of workers in lower-pay agriculture jobs near the border with Mexico. [ CW: Cost of living in Texas is lower than many other states; Texas has no state income tax; Texas is a right to work state.]

As for where the job growth has been, three sectors of the economy have grown faster than the energy sector, which alone added 40,500 net new jobs in 2010. Last year, Texas added 57,900 new jobs in trade, transportation, and utilities; a total of 53,400 jobs in professional and business services; and 44,900 net new jobs in the hospitality industry.

For each of the past seven years, CEOs polled by “Chief Executive” magazine have rated Texas first in the nation for economic development climate and job growth. What is the secret of Texas’s success? Rick Perry isn’t shy about his answer. “It’s all about four points,” he told me. “First, don’t spend all the money. Keep the taxes low and under control. Have regulations that are fair and predictable so business owners know what to expect from one quarter to the next. And reform the legal system so that frivolous lawsuits don’t paralyze employers who are trying to create real wealth.”

If there is on issue which Perry has made a personal crusade, it is lawsuit reform. Working with the legislature, he has helped pass curbs on frivolous lawsuits, implemented a first-in-the-nation system under which loser pays all court costs in many lawsuits, and reformed medical malpractice law.

Dick Weekley, the co-founder of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, says Perry showed genuine political courage in resisting calls for watered-down reforms that wouldn’t have addressed the core problem. He recalls that in 2002 Perry vetoed a bill strongly supported by doctors that would have required them to prompt payment from health maintenance organizations. In the eyes of the tort reform advocates, the bill was a Trojan Horse compromise negotiated between doctors and trial lawyers. “There was a huge response from physicians [against the veto],” Kim Ross, the former top lobbyist for the Texas Medical Association, said. TMA went so far as to endorse Tony Sanchez, Perry’s millionaire Democratic opponent in the 2002 election. “Perry sent a signal that he wanted real reform and would stand his ground,” Weekley told me. “Soon the medical lobbyists playing footsie with the trial lawyers were gone and the obstacles to real reform started falling.” [end excerpt]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

25,000,000 in Texas and growing.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And 2010? Kay Bailey Hutchison was his only serious competition - think about how sad and pathetic that is for a moment. Even then, the only time Hutchison was a serious threat to Perry was in February of 2009. After that it was smooth sailing with Perry, with only a bump in numbers around October or November when Medina gained some traction and took votes from Perry, but a week or two later and Perry was right back on top, and had anywhere from 9 to 21 points over Hutchison after that.

Kay wanted to parachute into Texas and sit in the gov. seat. The Bushes-Rove wanted to push Perry out and keep him out of Romney's greased path to the White House (still do). Kay was favored (or so we were told) to win -- she sank like a rock when Perry tied her to D.C..

The MSM was brutal to Perry. No major news outlet endorsed him.

People like to say Perry is lucky. How much "luck" can a man have before you begin to realize he works to win.

[smoothsailing]

[af_vet_rr]

Kay was backed by the Bush machine and Karl Rove.

And Perry was backed by a billionaire homebuilder who had his own machine, the same machine who helped sink John Kerry's campaign. Just to jog your memory. That billionaire homebuilder was willing to spend or do whatever was necessary to make sure his boy was still sitting in the Governor's mansion over the years. That billionaire homebuilder was probably the major reason why Perry is so friendly to illegals.

Medina lost because she was outed as a Truther.

Medina was never a threat to Perry. She scared him for a week or two but only because she temporarily evened things up between him and Hutchison.

White had millions from trial lawyers and lost.

Couldn't have anything to do with White running an incompetent campaign, could it? Ultimately, White was still a Clinton insider which didn't go over well in Texas, and Perry had a billionaire with no campaign spending limits backing him. I can promise you that Bob Perry had a lot more money than White had access to.

Kinky is a wild supporter of Perry for President.

Not in 2006.

Chris Bell had an awful campaign strategy.

That actually works against your argument, since that implies that Perry beat him because he was incompetent. That's not something to be proud of.

Rick Perry beat them out and won. Period.

If Mike Tyson beat up a little kid, would people be impressed?

[EnglishCon]

Maybe we can get Churchill’s bust back.

Nope. You lost that one for good. We Brits don't forgive snubs easily - if ever.

[af_vet_rr]

Just keep on discounting his abilities if it makes you feel better.

Refresh my memory, what ability did he use last year when he addressed the La Raza conference and helped to further legitimize their goals?

What ability did he use to avoid the Texas legislature when his billionaire backers were working to kill off the sanctuary cities legislation earlier this year, in an emergency session that Perry called and believed was important?

What ability is he using to avoid addressing the concerns of Tea Parties in Texas in their call for another session? If he's so damned tough on illegal immigration, he should have no probably calling for another session. He'd be showing Americans everywhere that he is really tough on illegal immigrants.

[lonestar]

an inside Establishment player

If you think Perry is that, there's no hope for you!

[shield]

Just keep up with your tired old bias bs against Perry. What is happening here is you will end up with Romney as the nominee. There is NO one else who has the ability to beat Romney but Perry.

[diogenes ghost]

"You're damn right."

Oh Lordy, where to start?

Putting troops on the border is a lousy idea, to start with. It is bad enough the UN uses combat troops as beat cops, but there are many who want it done here. Yuck.

But for OUR gov't to put OUR troops on Mexican streets, WTF???

It's bad enough when in an English speaking country, enforcing American laws, in contravention of the Constitution....yet you would like to see it done in Mexico?

Do you care more for Mr. Perry's candidacy than the Constitution? You can't have it both ways.

[af_vet_rr]

Just keep up with your tired old bias bs against Perry. What is happening here is you will end up with Romney as the nominee. There is NO one else who has the ability to beat Romney but Perry.

Trying to scare people into supporting your guy doesn't usually work too well - it just makes you look desperate and it makes your guy look weak. Just ask the Ron Paul folks. They've been trying to scare people into supporting him for years, and it doesn't work.

You ping me when Perry renounces his donors for killing off the sanctuary cities legislation and returns their money and when Perry renounces his support of a guest worker program. Ping me when Perry says that it was huge mistake to address La Raza's national convention last year. Are you starting to get the point? If you don't understand why many people don't like Perry, you're going to be in for a shock during the primaries.

[JoenTX]

Not necessarily a “Perry hater.” Just stop that, it should be beneath you. If you read any of my posts above you’ll see that I’ve had him around as Governor for that last eleven years and the you learn a bit about someone after that long. He’s not just some guy I discovered a couple of months ago and have now hung all my Reagan-esque hopes, dreams, and aspirations on. Don’t delude yourself there.

I’ve voted for him and against him. Is he better than Obama? Any cold ham sandwich is an improvement, so yes.

Cunning? Dealing Dems and the media in Texas is not like dealing with the Dems and media in the Corridor. That’s obvious and it’s showing as he drops to 4th with Newt in Florida. Is this the political sense and cunning of which you are referring?

Not bias, just my sober experience with him over the last decade.

[shield]

There is no fear to it...it is a fact Jack. And when it happens I’ll be glad to find you and tell you, I told you so. Today as it stands Romney will be the nominee...so keep up your bias bs cuz’ this is where we are heading. It is obvious you have NO political savy...if you had you’d already know this.

[shield]

I’ve lived in Texas all my life. I also know Perry.

[JoenTX]

“I’ve lived in Texas all my life. I also know Perry...”

Ahhhh, well then.

I assume then you are not upset by in-state tuition for illegals, or his straight on accusation that anyone who disagrees with his stances on immigration is “heartless”, or the seizure of private land (via Eminent Domain if necessary) for the TTC? Gardisil was just weird and mind-blowingly dense making me really question where his head and judgement really was.

Tort reform? Great. Continuation of the wind energy initiative? Awful. Keeping state sales tax down? Great.

So, you see, Perry is a very mixed bag for me. He ain’t Republican Jesus.

But, Rick’s own mouth may have taken care of any voting dilemma for me as he’s sinking like a rock in the polls.

[shield]

You need to read THIS.

[JoenTX]

Okay.

Read it.

I still don’t have a local Republican primary to vote in. I have to register and vote in the Dem precinct since most of the local candidates have to do the same as me.

What else?

[af_vet_rr]

Gardisil was just weird and mind-blowingly dense making me really question where his head and judgement really was.

Actually Gardisil is quite easy to explain.

Rick Perry has a good friend, Mike Toomey. Mike is a very good friend - providing personal legal advice to Perry, as well as serving as Perry's Chief of Staff.

Mike left government service and found his way into taking a paycheck from Merck to work as a lobbyist.

During this time period, Merck started putting money into a group called "Women in Government" to lobby for the vaccine, not just in Texas, but in many states, and Merck even had somebody from their vaccine group sitting on one of the WIG's councils. Now what does that have to do with Mike Toomey? Merck is free to give to whoever they want, right? By a very strange coincidence, Toomey's mother-in-law just so happened to be the Texas state director for "Women in Government". But that's a coincidence, right?

Speaking of groups that Merck was dumping money into, Merck was dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Republican Government's Association, a group that gave a substantial amount of money to Rick Perry. While some of that $325,000 or so made it's way into Rick Perry's campaign coffers, most of the RGA money for Rick Perry comes from the millions that Bob Perry gave it. But it can't be ignored.

It's really not about money Merck directly or indirectly (through the RGA) gave to Perry, although when you start getting into hundreds of thousands of dollars, people start listening to you. I've wondered why Perry's campaign would directly take a small amount of money from Merck's PAC around the time Merck was lobbying his office, but in hindsight I think that's just a clever smokescreen. Get people riled up about $5,000 and ignore the hundreds of thousands of dollars given to the RGA or the fact that Perry's good buddy was shilling hard for Merck.

It's also not about Rick Perry getting lobbied by some woman with cancer or when or where she talked to him during the process - that doesn't matter, that's just a clever smokescreen. It wouldn't surprise me if that Perry astroturfing group leaked that story. Better to give the media a small story and have them ignore the bigger story.

No Gardisil is about the fact that Merck hired Perry's good friend to lobby the Texas government. You see, good things happen to Perry's good friends.

This happens a lot with Rick Perry - his friends do extremely well or get all kinds of bonuses for associating with Ricky. Rudy Giuliani's lawfirm was heavily involved with trying to get Perry's precious TTC built, and big coincidence! Rick Perry campaigns hard for the 2008 election for his good buddy Rudy Giuliani. Nothing funny going on there - Rick Perry campaigning for somebody representing a foreign company working on Texas contracts. And we can't ignore the TTC, I have a feeling the full story on that has yet to be written, but let's not forget another good friend of Perry's - Dan Shelly. Dan worked for Cintra, that foreign company trying to get the TTC built, then worked on Perry's staff, then surprise, surprise, Dan left the governor's office and he and his daughter got some juicy lobbying contracts from, GUESS WHO? If you said Cintra, you get a prize!

That's the biggest thing that bothers me about the "crony capitalism" business raised by Sarah Palin and others - all too often they don't look deep enough into the connections. It's not about the $5,000 that some would have you believe it's about. It's about Perry's network of friends and associates benefiting from their association with Perry, whether it's Mike Toomey, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Shelley or Bob Perry.

I expect the Mike Toomey, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Shelley, and Bob Perry stuff out of Obama and his Chicago connections. I hate that this kind of corruption exists in Texas, but the state was run by Democrats up until the last decade or two, so what can you do?

[af_vet_rr]

Today as it stands Romney will be the nominee...so keep up your bias bs cuz’ this is where we are heading. It is obvious you have NO political savy...if you had you’d already know this.

A Mormon winning the GOP primary? Don't make me laugh. You're the one lacking political savvy.

[af_vet_rr]

You need to read THIS.

Wayne Christian has taken money from Bob Perry. Do you honestly think he's going to speak out against Rick Perry???? That would be the quickest way in the world for Wayne to find himself running up against a well-funded primary challenger or to find himself cut off from the benefits of being on Bob Perry's donation list.

[JoenTX]

Nice story. Might be. Might not be.

But cronyism and corruption happens in all parties. There are Dem cronies. There are GOP cronies. They stink equally so.

I don’t like it when anyone or any voter gets too so emotionally involved in a person that they lose sight of reality. We’ve been watching it with Obama and his drones for the last three years. It’s not good.

I am not interested in replacing one foolish, string-guided, imbecile with another foolish, string-guided imbecile. Getting rid of the King is no good if I just replace him with another King.