“Say what you will but Gardasil is the first anti-cancer vaccine. People are all hung up on the STD component and missing the forest for the trees. Perry was putting Tx ahead of 49 other states in a very promising area of medical research. Crazy like a fox. Unfortunately he’s a hamhanded, inarticulate one.”
But it still gets into the core values question. A real conservative would run for the hills at the idea of mandating Gardasil shots - even if it meant a bunch of jobs. Someone who’s faking it, but still a good politician would ask around, and then run for the hills once they got their answer. Someone who’s clueless would jump on the idea...and make a fool of himself.
Sorry, but I see it that way. I would agree that in a debate you can mess up, and not get out of it easy, or at all. But on something like this, there are many, many, people and levels of government that will see what you’re doing before it becomes public - you MUST solicit their advice before acting. It would be interesting to some day find out that story. Did Perry ask others, or were they afraid to speak up, or maybe none of them were conservatives and therefore none of them had a clue as to how the public would react?
I think it was general cluelessness to the potential reaction as well as the synergy or crossover between the anti-vaccine zealots and the social conservatives.
Plus they did a very poor job on the “mandate” and should have made it an opt in instead of an opt out program.
People really get silly over this vaccine simply because its for an STD that they assume is only sexually transmitted. I don’t recall anyone getting their knickers in a twist over the introduction of hep vaccine which is also sexually transmitted. I suppose its because you can also get it from a transfusion and who knows when you might have an accident that requires one.