This is not due simply to the platform thing. That is simply the latest. I am talking about Perry's track record, which has been disturbing for quite some time. Just a few of the bigger highlights that come to mind:
- Perry signed the Democrat-passed Texas Hate Crimes Law in 2001.
- Perry appointed a liberal Democrat state representative as his first Texas Secretary of State. That democrat, Henry Cuellar, used his Perry-appointed position of Texas SoS as a springboard to mount a DNC-backed challenge to U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla. Bonilla is a conservative Republican congressman who has successfully held a marginally Democrat district along the Rio Grande for the last decade. Cuellar is his biggest Democrat challenger since he first won the seat.
- Perry's blown through the budget surplus he inherited with massive new state spending from the last legislative session.
- Perry campaigned for and passed a state constitutional amendment to provide millions of dollars in taxpayer funded infrastructure development to illegal immigrant settlements along the American side of the Rio Grande.
And now he's spitting on our Republican platform!
I'll concede that the Texas GOP has a very conservative platform and could reasonably understand Perry differing from it on a few planks such as the UN one (even though I'd personally prefer he did not). But some of these are CORE REPUBLICAN ISSUES that he is opposing! Perry flat out declared his opposition to the heart of the platform! He opposes us on:
- overhauling the tax system
- repealing the minimum wage
- eliminating affirmative action in government contracting
- Shifting education regulatory power from the bureaucrat Texas Education Agency to the elected State Board of Education
- establishing strictly merit-based state college admission procedures
- ending bilingual education
- sentencing without parole for repeat felons
- ending the Motor Voter vote fraud scheme
Most if not all of these are core conservative republican issues, and Rick Perry just publicly announced his opposition to every one of them!
Add that onto hate crimes, big spending, and his other liberal behavior in office, and I don't think it can be denied that Perry is a RINO.
I know this is an election year and realize I will probably be criticized by the "party loyalty at all costs" crowd for speaking out against Perry. But that's fine with me. My speaking out against Perry constitutes nowhere near the display of blatant disloyalty to ones own party shown by Perry himself both today and in the past.
Perry's behavior should be cause for concern for anybody living in Texas, especially Republicans. He is facing a strong challenge this year which we cannot afford to lose. But if it is lost, it will not be due to Tony Sanchez's merits. The republican majority in Texas will not vote for Tony Sanchez. They simply won't show up to vote in the strong numbers of the past with the reason being the absence of a worthy Republican candidate to fight for.
Flame or comment away.
While Perry was a dem back in the 80's, he supported the Gore monster in his initial presidential runs and in some of his environmental views...need we say more?
You're right. He isn't a very attractive candidate. But given the demographic realities of the Brave New Texas and the existing slate of candidates, what are we to do? And make no mistake...those nasty demographic realities are only going to get worse...
"Governor Perry would destroy minoroty hiring contracts and force English on everyone in our school systems..."
It's no wonder he's being mealy-mouthed about it. He's actually following the script of his predecessor to a tee. Perry's doing just the sort of stuff Bush was doing when he was Governor.
You can say these folks aren't conservative, but you can't say they're not popular.
Perry is pro-gun, pro-life, pro-war-on-terror, and he has powerful Hispanic friends such as the current Presidents of Bolivia and Mexico. Hispanics now outnumber Blacks in America. Discard them at your own risk.
That is who the Rep. Party chose for you to choose from. How sad. A write in campaign would yield a better candidate.
Like "None of the Above" from "Brewster's Millions".
Pardon the cynicism.
This is a bit of a non sequitur, but I've always been troubled by the "referendum" process.
It is, in effect, "direct democracy" of the kind we ought to be on guard against.
Now, to be sure, there ARE "checks and balances" in that unconstitutional laws passed by referendum can be challenged in court. But there is certainly no executive veto available that I know of.
Anyway, the referendum process has always bothered me because it provides a sort of negation of the argument against direct democracy which the Lefties would LOVE to extend to the national level.
Oh, and I guess I don't really mind the lottery, aka the "dumb tax." Sometimes when I'm watching my 401K shrivel I indulge the urge to buy a ticket, especially when the jackpot's topping $20 mil.
I often imagine a Simpson's-like scenario in which someone tells me "You'd have a better chance of getting struck by lightning" to which I reply, Homer-esque: "Struck by lightning, eh..?"
As a precinct chair and party activist, know that I agree with you 100%. I will hold my nose and vote for him as the lesser-of-two-evils. (I'm not sure about that!
Perry was a Democrat; I think he still is.
I live in Southeast Texas, still home to the "yellow dogs." Bush won all three elections he ran in on the strength of conservative Dems. Perry is going to lose them; they have no reason to vote for him over Sanchez.
My greatest fear is that it will trickle down and have influence on state rep elections. Control of the Texas Senate was determined by the vote count in my county four (or six) years ago. And I mean vote count. The GOP candidate did not carry my county but he got sufficient votes to win the election which gave control of the senate to the Republicans.
We control 19 of 21 precincts in the county and I'm afraid we will lose half of them with Perry. It's determined by votes for governor.
There is a lot riding on this election and Perry is a drag on the ticket, IMHO.
As someone else said, most of us will be voting for him holding our noses.
The Texas platform is written so that VERY FEW people with an IQ above 100 points can agree with all of it!
BTW I do NOT like Perry but then again I don't much like our Platform Committee nor those who insist we should all follow it.