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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I have to tell you, these debates are excellent. They are entertaining. They are eye opening. There are some things wrong with them, obviously. I mean some of these people are making mistakes, but that's to be expected in these circumstances. It is really entertaining to go from person to person to person. I thought Wolf Blitzed kept it moving last night. Last night reminded me of the first debate where it was constant conservatism on parade. I'm just talking about overall, just the overview of this last night. Sure, all of these candidates have flaws. They've...

RUSH: Perry goofed up by using an executive order on the Gardasil -- there's no question he goofed up on it -- instead of taking it to the Texas legislature. He's admitted that over and over again. I think one of the reasons that Perry gets tired is that he had all the questions. He had to answer every question three or four times last night, and he did it smiling. I tell you, I would have probably (by the third or fourth time they came at me on this) have said, "What more do you need to hear on...

Our nation needs a leader in the White House who understands the role of government and our economy. Governor Rick Perry has the strongest record of job creation, fiscal discipline, and executive branch leadership among the presidential candidates. As a governor, Rick Perry created a tremendous blueprint for job creation and as President, I know he will get America working again. I consider Governor Perry a friend and I am proud to endorse his campaign for President.

GrowPAC, a group founded by former New York Senate candidate David Malpass, will air radio ads in Iowa urging people to write Perry's name onto the Ames straw poll ballot. "President Obama is making things worse. We need a president who will stop this," Malpass says in the spot. "Iowa has a chance to turn things around for America. At the Ames Straw Poll write in Rick Perry, he can win and make America secure again. I worked for Ronald Reagan and I know how countries create growth and jobs. Let’s give Rick Perry a chance." Continue Reading The 60-second...

WASHINGTON, August 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California legislature is now pushing through a bill to remove parental notification for children as young as 12 to receive the dangerous STD vaccine Gardasil. The American Life League reports that each treatment of the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has an average cost of over $360, a sum that would be footed by taxpayers. Gardasil, the most popular HPV vaccine, has been found to cause dangerous side effects and as many as twelve deaths in the United States alone. The state had attempted but failed in 2007 to mandate HPV vaccinations for all girls...

As Tim Pawlenty said early in the campaign, if you govern long enough, you’ll have a clunker or two on your record. The key to running for higher office is whether the candidate can acknowledge, explain, and if necessary apologize for them while maintaining credibility. Rick Perry faced that challenge in libertarian-tinged New Hampshire over a mandate he pushed to vaccinate young girls against the HPV virus, a cause of cervical cancer, a mandate that a friendly legislature overturned when Texans balked at the notion. Perry said he made a mistake, and the legislature took the right action: His third...

Rick Perry has counted on the staunch support of Texas conservatives during his two decades of statewide triumphs in Texas. He’s an anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-regulation, anti-Washington stalwart. Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com and a leader on the right since the days of Ronald Reagan, called Perry a “committed conservative” whose presidential announcement “brought a wave of relief to conservatives.” Then why are some conservative bloggers and activists warning others on the political right about a Perry presidential candidacy? “Before Republicans start salivating too heavily, it is important to examine Perry closely,” says conservative talk-show host David Zublick. “His conservative...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, under questioning from voters in recent days, has switched positions on a 2007 executive order he issued mandating the vaccination of all young girls before they enter sixth grade to ward off cervical cancer. Mr. Perry's order that Texas school girls receive the vaccine, Gardasil, made by Merck & Co., was overturned by the state legislature and never got off the ground. But it still has roiled conservatives and Christian groups for years. After long defending the decision, Mr. Perry has apologized repeatedly for the order since launching his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. As...

After his announcement last weekend, Rick Perry’s record has come under considerable scrutiny from the media and the blogs. One of the most notable items of discussion has been about an executive order that Perry signed, mandating young girls to receive the HPV vaccine known as Gardasil. It was so controversial that the Texas State Legislature stepped in and repealed the law just weeks after Perry had pushed it through.Tuesday evening, Michelle Malkin published a very detailed column about Perry’s Gardasil mandate. She wrote: In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl...

With Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entry into the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, it’s worth taking a look at his views on health care, which remains one of the most critical domestic policy challenges facing the nation, and one where the next president will have a game-changing impact on the nation’s future. Perry’s actions have made his position clear. He has consistently opposed President Barack Obama’s health care law, has joined the state lawsuit against the individual mandate, declined to participate in the new federal high-risk pools, and made public his refusal to create a state-level health insurance exchange mandated by...

GOP presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry is taking a lot of heat from some conservatives for issuing an executive order in 2007 that required middle-school-age girls to be vaccinated for HPV -- a sexually transmitted disease that is a main cause for cervical cancer. Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association (CMA), says his group sent a letter to Governor Perry at the time. While remaining neutral, the CMA told him they were not opposed to his mandate, as long it included an easy opt-out for parents -- which it did. "In most states, and Texas...

I spoke to a group of politically active, so-called conservatives last week at a hotel here in my New Mexico hometown. One of the topics that kept coming up was whether I despised Texas Gov. Rick Perry as much as I despised most other candidates that the Republican/Democrat regime is trying to force me to pick from in the next election. Let’s think through some deep thoughts and do fact-checking on Perry and the entire Left/Right paradigm as most people seem to see it right now: You can spend about five minutes on the governor’s official website confirming that Rick...

Forbes magazine editor Steve Forbes says he "very impressed" with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and is leaning toward endorsing him for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. "Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, is now the front-runner. He's had a good record even though liberals are now trying to trash it, along with perhaps some of his GOP opponents," Forbes, a two-time presidential candidate, tells Newsmax. "He did some very good things in reforming their personal injury liability system, very very positive reforms. He encouraged energy production instead of states like California that discourage it, and refused to put in a...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry called in to Mark Levin's radio show and the two had a wide-ranging conversation. Levin ended by saying, while he is not endorsing anyone yet for the GOP Nomination, Perry is "up there with candidates acceptable to me."

Gov. Rick Perry's 2007 attempt to require that girls in Texas be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, commonly known as HPV, has become a political hot potato. But Dr. Ronald DePinho, the new president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says the vaccine is not just sound but "one of the great scientific advances in the history of medicine." In last night's GOP presidential debate, Perry faced repeated criticism from other candidates for his HPV push. Michele Bachmann said it was “flat out wrong” to require that “innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through...

I’ve been leaning towards Rick Perry for a few weeks with Michele Bachmann as my second choice if he implodes. My first preference didn’t change last night but my second place choice did. Last night Michele Bachmann lost my support. She not only lost it for consideration as a presidential nominee, she lost it period. Full stop. In my view she beclowned herself beyond redemption and the sooner she disappears from the national stage the better. For reasons that seem to have more to do with being behind Ron Paul in the polls and trying to scab some of the...

More than an hour into last night’s debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann attacked Gov. Rick Perry on the HPV vaccination controversy — or more accurately pseudo-controversy. It stems from an executive order issued by Perry in 2007 that required all Texas girls to receive Gardasil, a vaccine against the most common strains of human papilloma virus, before entering the sixth grade. However, Texas lawmakers blocked that mandate. Some critics argued that the vaccine was too new to have been confirmed safe, while others said that Perry’s order would preempt parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, possibly causing...

Electability. It's an elusive quality. It's like chemistry, between movie stars. It's like tinnitus, for wine. Or is that tannins? You know what I mean — the quality of wine that keeps wine experts' voices ringing in your ears when you are stuck next to them at dinners. It's like buzz. It's like the It factor. It's what Bertie Wooster would call a certain indefinable Thingness. Somehow, we have this idea that a person can be “electable.” Of course, you can’t be electable in a vacuum. If I am electable in the middle of a forest and no one is...

As I have said before, it constantly amazes me to watch what the media describes as “experienced” senior campaign advisers fail to follow through and do their research. “Know thy enemy” is the first rule of politics 101 and yet supposed ” unbeatable” campaign influence peddlers have failed to learn this lesson when it comes to Rick Perry. I t is downright amusing to watch the show. <snip> Perry’s people will either leak something Perry has said that is “damaging” in the past or will leak something written to the media. It is either this or it is said in...

<p>Perry repeatedly found himself in the crosshairs, as the field of candidates took turns attacking his positions on illegal immigration, Social Security, and his controversial 2007 push to vaccinate Texas schoolgirls against human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted that can lead to cervical cancer. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose standing among Republicans has slipped dramatically since Perry entered the race, said she was "offended" by Perry's executive order, which included an opt-out provision for parents who did not want the vaccine.</p>