Free Republic

Apple Inc. AAPL +0.59% plans to build a $304 million campus in Austin, Texas, doubling its presence there over the next decade. The Cupertino, Calif., company said it will add 3,600 jobs in the next 10 years to its existing work force of 3,500 employees there. Apple said the move is part of a rapid expansion from 1,000 employees in 2004. Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office said most of the jobs will be in sales, customer support and accounting for the area. In exchange, the state offered Apple a $21 million investment over 10 years through its business development efforts...

...“We’ll make that decision on Saturday,” [Perry] said on ABC’s This Week. “It’s our intention to win SouthCarolina and go forward from there. But to try to plan out your campaign months in advance, I think is a little bit of a stretch.” The governor, who trailed in the Iowa caucuses and in the NewHampshire primary, said Sunday that his service in the AirForce will play well with the Palmetto State’s large veterans population. He has also tried to gain votes by attacking front-runner MittRomney as a “vulture” capitalist, a phrase that conservative commentators say sounds like an attack on...

If Rick Perry leaves the Republican race, there will not be a candidate in the field who authentically represents smaller government. While many conservatives don’t mind activist government so long as the ends are conservative, the willful use of activist government for conservative ends leaves in place a government perfectly capable of activist liberal government when conservatives lose. The only way to fully turn the tide of big government is therefore to support someone who is willing to scale back government. Unfortunately, the only candidate with both an agenda to significantly cut government and a record of actually doing so...

"I hope he stays in." said Rush Limbaugh today on his radio show, after acknowledging that there was some confusion about whether Rick Perry had decided to stay in the race for president or not.{Snip}

“ … states' rights, states’ rights, states' rights!” — Rick Perry at the Alamo, June 15, 2009 Until you get higher in the hills, Laconia might be considered the vortex of New Hampshire redneck politics, heavy into the Tea Party. The Lakes Region Tea Party is small but might be indicative of how things will go. A straw poll on Nov. 16 gave Newt Gingrich 49 percent while Cain tied with Ron Paul at 15. Romney 12 percent and Rick Perry 0. Similar results in a straw poll at a Republican club in Alabama on Saturday: Newt 45 percent, Cain...

It’s a perennial complaint from Texas Gov. Rick Perry: The federal government places far too many restrictions on how states can run Medicaid, the entitlement program that provides health care to low-income Americans. “We know for a fact that, given that freedom, the states can do a better job of delivering health care,” Perry said in a Republican debate last month. He’s endorsed turning the entitlement program into a block grant and flirted with having Texas drop out of it altogether. But back in Texas, Perry is actually pursuing a highly technocratic and pragmatic attempt at Medicaid reform that doesn’t...

...“You would be surprised at how many Republican Latinos there actually are in the state of Nevada. There are quite a few of us,” said Alex Garza, a Hispanic Republican activist. “I think the numbers are there; we just haven’t organized as well as the Democratic Latino organizations.” The potential political power of Latinos is an oft-told story in Nevada and elsewhere, though any happy ending at the polls usually is enjoyed by Democrats. ...During the Republican presidential candidates’ nationally televised debate in Las Vegas last month, they were asked how they would speak to the Latino community. Newt Gingrich...

Washington and Des Moines - Throughout the roller-coaster Republican presidential contest, one thing hasn't changed: the stubborn refusal of many tea party supporters to warm up to Mitt Romney. The swift rise and abrupt fall of a succession of GOP candidates has been driven in part by the restless search for a Romney alternative by that group of voters, who energized the GOP's big turnaround in 2010. "They don't trust Mitt Romney," said Simon Conway, a Des Moines radio host popular with tea party followers. "Mitt Romney can be tea party one minute, and the next minute introduce 'RomneyCare'" —...

Taking a page from Ronald Reagan, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Saturday sought to use humor to rebound from his much-noted debate flub earlier in the week. That flub, a 53-second brain freeze that was replayed endlessly on news shows, had him forgetting the name of the Department of Energy, the third federal agency he pledges to eliminate. So Perry was quick to cut off CBS’ Scott Pelley, one of the debate moderators in South Carolina, when he began a question, saying, “Governor Perry, you advocate the elimination of the Department of Energy. If you eliminate the Department of Energy...”...

Within seconds of Rick Perry's onstage collapse last night, the political world had almost unanimously declared the time of death for the Texas Governor's presidential campaign. But Perry's spectacular meltdown may end up being the best thing that ever happened to his lagging White House bid. In contrast to the Herman Cain camp, Perry's team has been a model for crisis management in the aftermath of the gaffe. The chagrined candidate has been making the morning show rounds today, displaying a startling humble and human side in the face of some pretty snarky talk show hosts. Perry's media blitz is...

Rick Perry gave a superb speech to NH Cornerstone, a New Hampshire conservative group. The full speech is here and well worth the time to watch (about 25 minutes). In fact, this partisan New Hampshire reporter considers the speech close to perfect for the audience. How did the left-leaning media react? As could perhaps be anticipated, with ridicule and mockery. For example, in a harsh piece by Brian Browdie of the NY Daily News titled "Rick Perry's unusually expressive 2012 speech in New Hampshire sparks rumors he was drunk," ... ..Why did the media react this way? Maybe because Perry...

No description is needed because Perry self-immolates within the first tn seconds of the video.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney discussed his reputation as a flip-flopper at Wednesday night’s CNBC Republican presidential debate, disputing the characterization and calling himself “a man of steadiness and constancy.” Romney was asked to address the “issue of character” after he mentioned the auto bailout, which he has been accused of switching positions on. The Democratic National Committee has been bracketing Romney in Michigan with ads attacking him for flip-flopping on the issue.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Tuesday blasted as “irresponsible” the repeal of the policy that barred openly gay troops from serving in the military, saying “don’t ask, don’t tell” was “working well.” “The idea that the president of the United States wanted to make a political statement using our men and women in the military as the tool for that was irresponsible,” Perry said in an interview with ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour. The ban was lifted in September, ending a provision that President Barack Obama said had forced gay and lesbian service members to “lie about who they are.”...

New Hampshire politician Ken Merrifield, who co-chaired Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign in Merrimack County, is now supporting Romney’s rival in the presidential race, Texas Governor Rick Perry. Merrifield, the two-term mayor of Franklin, N.H., is well known in New Hampshire and has a history of local political involvement. In a statement, Merrifield did not say why he chose not to support Romney a second time around. But he said, “Gov. Perry has an unmatched record on job creation, consistently conservative policies, and a proven record of strong leadership.”

Democrats had ruled the state Agriculture Department for a hundred years. Perry immediately ejected Hightower loyalists and Democratic operatives from the agency. He pledged to cut the department’s staff by 20 percent and scale down the number of regional offices around the state. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry talked with a friendin September 1991 while visiting a ranch outside Austin. After Rick Perry switched from Democrat to Republican in 1989, he set out to become, in the words of his mentor Phil Gramm, more Catholic than the pope. During the next 22 years, as he rose to the top of...

...Two schools of thought run through Republican circles. One holds that Romney is the logical nominee and will consolidate the party's somewhat grudging support after conservatives stop flirting with longshots such as Bachmann and Cain. Republicans have a history of nominating the runner-up from previous primaries, and Romney fits that bill. The competing theory holds that Americans are angrier at government and the two parties than political pros realize, and the tea party is just the start of a potent, long-lasting movement. Under this scenario, Romney can never placate conservative voters because of his establishment ties and the more liberal...

In a February 2008, Herman Cain used his syndicated column to endorse a candidate in the Republican primary. His choice? Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor struck Cain as best equipped to "focus on the right problems" and make the "tough decisions" to solve them: "Romney has done that as a chief executive officer in business, as a governor and as head of the U.S. Olympics," Cain wrote, adding the noteworthy judgment that "he has done so while balancing political consequences, but not compromising fundamental principles of the founding of this country or free-market economics." Romneycare apparently wasn't seen as...

Perry accused lawmakers of being too chummy with Wall Street at a town hall held yesterday in Johnston, Iowa. Asked what he would do to “to stop stupid CEOs of financial institutions from making bad decisions that cause them to fail,” Perry said there are already “plenty of regulations in place to do that.” What’s lacking, he claimed, is “a government that will actually institute the oversight.” “I happen to think Wall Street and Washington, D.C., have been in bed together way too long,” he said. “That’s one of the problems that we have in this country, is that there...

Heads up all ye who want change from another Obama term in 2012. There’s only one man for that job: Rick Perry. Voters said so in Wisconsin. Perry topped Obama 46% to 42% in a Rasmussen poll. Should Obama run against Mitt Romney, Obama would win 45% to 41%. Should Obama run against Herman Cain, Obama would win 47% to 41%. The poll makes a case for Perry if Americans really want to see Obama out. The Rasmussen poll surveyed 500 Wisconsin voters by phone, not a sampling of voters nationwide. But the trendline is up for Perry and a...