Watching Rick Perry’s announcement from South Carolina that he was officially throwing his ten gallon hat in the ring, just as the Ames Iowa Straw Poll was underway, I really wanted to like him!! He looked and sounded presidential, shades of Ronald Reagan at first glance. The fact that Texas has produced half of all the jobs created in the past 10-years and 40% since Obama has been in office is also an enticing thought. And for those of us who are Christians, his prayer event where 44,000+ people gathered to pray for the Texas, rain for the state and for the healing of America was positive icing on the cake.
Perry’s team simultaneously released his first campaign commercial. And by entering the race, Rick Perry has just shaken up the contest for the Republican nomination for President and that is a good thing overall. During week one people have generally gone crazy for Perry!
But as soon as you look a bit closer at Rick Perry, you realize that there really is no middle ground. People either love him or hate him. And many of his fellow Texans are pretty luke warm, if not down right negative, about supporting him in his bid for the presidency; a fact that is a definitely disconcerting.
Many people in the tea party movement see Perry as a mixed bag. And if he ends up being the GOP nominee, he defeats Obama on one single issue: Jobs, and now even that story isn’t quite what it appeared.
America has been losing jobs, while Texas has been creating them. Jobs will be the central issue of this upcoming election. To update the great quote from Ronald Reagan, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Obama loses his job!” And making Obama a one-term president must remain the goal, no matter who the nominee ends up being.
Rick Perry is running as a conservative and certainly is more conservative than Mitt Romney, or at least that is what we are being told. And many people believe Perry could be the one candidate who can unite the Tea Party and the establishment GOP, as well as attract the independents. He is certainly not as conservative as Michele Bachmann, and many argue that he is more electable than Michele. However, on that same note, he is perhaps more conservative than Sarah Palin in some areas, who has a Libertarian streak, and he is less desirable than she in most other areas. (If you take an honest look at Palin’s record and beliefs and stop listening to the mainstream media, if she runs… Palin would be the candidate who is most like Ronald Reagan! And disappointingly to her detractors, the emails recently released by Alaska covering Palin’s governorship, show that Sarah is a smart and honest politician.)
How much Tea Party support does Perry have? That would depend on the tea party group and perhaps where they are geographically located, at least to a point. The Moore (South Carolina) Tea Party had a straw poll at their recent event where Michele Bachmann finished a weak second to Rick Perry. Rick Perry got 40% more votes than Michele Bachmann, but it is in an area that has been infatuated with the idea of a Perry run for years. And again, I would say that Palin in that same poll would have walked away with it even there, and let us not forget that fellow Texan Ron Paul, who was second in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll, is also a tea party candidate. Some even call him the father of the tea party. I’d say the Tea Party will only support him sporadically.
Perry is a good campaigner, a good speaker, has a very good organization, and is now a money-raising machine. And if Perry can pull well in at least some Tea Party groups he could draw enough votes to beat alleged front-runner Mitt Romney. He has already pulled into the front-runner spot, but many feel that he may just as quickly burn out as people get to know more about him.
And as much as we’d like to think that looks and presentation don’t matter in who we vote for, it definitely does to some people. And many think Perry is good-looking and presents himself well. However others have said that the way he puts himself together is odd; “the boots and tuxedo thing may be fine in Texas but outside of the lone star state it doesn’t travel very well.” And others think he comes across as an insincere televangelist. Some have also criticized Perry for mangling the history of Texas.
There are a lot of questions that need to be asked of Perry, a lot of concerns, including his stance on illegal immigration. Hopefully we learned our lesson with Barack Obama and we vet our candidates… all of them, plus we stop letting the media tell us who is good, bad or questionable… and the one to vote for. Look where that got us last time.
One thing is certain, given his strength as an unannounced candidate, there is that possibility that we may have just seen the future Republican nominee enter the race.
Many, including in an article in the WSJ, are still looking at the GOP field and saying, “If there is anybody out there still thinking about getting into this race… now would be the time!” Sarah Palin, Chris Christy, Paul Ryan, Rudy Giuliani, Thaddeus McCotter, John Bolton and even a re-emergence of Donald Trump are all on that list. And there are beginning to be those in the Democratic party saying the same thing about their party. Let us just pray the Trump does not try to jump in as a third party candidate; a disaster in the making for the GOP and America!
And before we get to the slug fest below… I will point out a few Perry positives:
Perry packs a concealed laser-guided pistol and has used it.
He is a fifth generation Texan, the son of hardscrabble west Texas tenant farmers. Democrats but conservatives through and through. He grew up in a farm town too small to be on the state map. Life was so hard that he was six years old before his house had indoor plumbing. His mother sewed his clothes, including the underwear he wore to college.
He is an Eagle Scout.
After Paint Creek High School, he attended Texas A&M, graduated, and was commissioned into the Air Force where he became a C-130 pilot where he served proudly for the U.S.
Now 61 years old, he has won nine elections to four different offices in Texas state government. In the first three elections he ran as a Democrat then switched to the Republican Party. He is currently the 47th governor of Texas, a position he has held for 11 years, the longest tenure of any governor in the nation. He has never lost an election. Rick Perry was the Lieutenant Governor to whom Governor George Bush handed over the office after winning the 2000 Presidential election.
He says it as he sees it, which so far is what I like about him most.
And you can say none of the above about Obama!
The only question, looking at his history is how can we depend on Perry really doing what he says?!?
14 18 Reasons Why Rick Perry Would Be A Really, Really Bad President
Supporters of Texas Governor Rick Perry are not going to like this part of the article at all. Right now, Republicans all over the United States are touting Rick Perry as the "Republican messiah" (where have we heard that before?), that is going to come charging in to save America from the presidency of Barack Obama.
Many believed that if Rick Perry entered the race, he would instantly become the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and gosh darn if he hasn’t. Perry certainly looks the part and he knows how to give a good speech, but when ordinary Americans all over the country take a hard look at his record, they may not like what they see. The truth is that Rick Perry is a big-time globalist, he has raised taxes and fees in Texas numerous times, he has massively increased the size of government spending and government debt in Texas, he has been trying to ram the Trans-Texas Corridor down the throats of the Texas people and he tried to force young women all over Texas to be injected with the Gardasil vaccine. He also has strong ties to the some Muslim community elites, has a history of being a womanizer and skirt chaser (reports that his team always clean up)… which is pretty hypocritical if you are touting yourself as a good Christian and I just saw an article questioning whether Perry is sexist. No, Rick Perry is not going to save America. In fact, he would likely be very, very similar to both Bush and Obama in a lot of ways and that is something we cannot afford!
Right now, Rick Perry is trying to portray himself as a "good conservative" so he will be accepted by Christian conservatives and take votes from people like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin, if she jumps in. And he would be an option to Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, something I really cannot believe we are worried about after we have had a Muslim in the White House, who won’t even own up to it.!
If Rick Perry did win the Republican nomination, he would have a great chance of winning the general election because he would very much be an "establishment" candidate. But is that really what America needs or wants?
So before Republicans get too excited about Rick Perry, there are a whole lot of things that they should know about him and check out for themselves!!.
The following are 18 reasons why Rick Perry would be a really, really bad president....
#1 Rick Perry is a "big government" politician. When Rick Perry became the governor of Texas in 2000, the total spending by the Texas state government was approximately $49 billion. Ten years later it was approximately $90 billion. That is not exactly reducing the size of government. He also has a mixed record on regulatory robbery!
#2 The debt of the state of Texas is out of control. According to usdebtclock.org, the debt to GDP ratio in Texas is 22.9% and the debt per citizen is $10,645. In California (a total financial basket case), the debt to GDP ratio is just 18.7% and the debt per citizen is only $9932. If Rick Perry runs for president these are numbers he will want to keep well hidden.
#3 The total debt of the Texas government has more than doubled since Rick Perry became governor. So what would the U.S. national debt look like after four (or eight) years of Rick Perry?
#4 Rick Perry has spearheaded the effort to lease roads in Texas to foreign companies, to turn roads that are already free to drive on into toll roads, and to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor which would be part of the planned NAFTA superhighway system. If you really do deep research on this whole Trans-Texas Corridor nonsense you will see why no American should ever cast a single vote for Rick Perry.
#5 Rick Perry claims that he has a "track record" of not raising taxes. That is a false claim. Rick Perry has repeatedly raised taxes and fees while he has been governor. Today, Texans are faced with significantly higher taxes and fees than they were before Rick Perry was elected.
#6 Even with the oil boom in Texas, 23 states have a lower unemployment rate than Texas does.
#7 Back in 1988, Rick Perry supported Al Gore for president. In fact, Rick Perry actually served as Al Gore's campaign chairman in the state of Texas that year.
#8 Between December 2007 and April 2011, weekly wages in the U.S. increased by about 5 percent. In the state of Texas they increased by just 0.6% over that same time period.
#9 Texas now has one of the worst education systems in the nation. The following is from an opinion piece that was actually authored by Barbara Bush earlier this year... So for families and education Perry is a nightmare!
• We rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma.
• We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.
• We rank 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.
#10 Rick Perry attended the Bilderberg Group meetings in 2007. Associating himself with that organization should be a red flag for all American voters.
#11 Texas has the highest percentage of workers making minimum wage out of all 50 states.
#12 Rick Perry often gives speeches about illegal immigration, but when you look at the facts, he has been incredibly soft on the issue. If Rick Perry does not plan to secure the border, then he should not be president because illegal immigration is absolutely devastating many areas of the southwest United States.
#13 In 2007, 221,000 residents of Texas were making minimum wage or less. By 2010, that number had risen to 550,000.
#14 Rick Perry actually issued an executive order in 2007 that would have forced almost every single girl in the state of Texas to receive the Gardasil vaccine before entering the sixth grade. Perry would have put parents in a position where they would have had to fill out an application and beg the government not to inject their child with a highly controversial vaccine. Since then, very serious safety issues regarding this vaccine have come to light. Fortunately, lawmakers in Texas blocked what Perry was trying to do. According to Wikipedia, many were troubled when "apparent financial connections between Merck and Perry were reported by news outlets, such as a $6,000 campaign contribution and Merck's hiring of former Perry Chief of Staff Mike Toomey to handle its Texas lobbying work."
#15 Rick Perry is very good friends with the Agha Kahn and has an unusually cozy relationship with the Muslim community so could end up being a pro-Sharia candidate as well. He has made some It is certainly something worth investigating.
#17 And there are the reports of the womanizing. Perry seems to have quite a team behind him who covers-up the problems and leaks. But for a Christian conservative… skirt chasing is definitely an issue! Governor’s sex scandal covered in Austin paper…first non-Internet outlet to report it.
#18 Changing the U.S. Constitution… Perry style cause he is Fed Up! Some of these are good ideas and others are not!! But changing our founding document is a long process and must be done with care, reason and consensus! He and Obama may have more in common in this area than we’d like! Obama and his bunch want to write a whole second bill of rights and they just skirt around the Constitution if it doesn’t suit them.
Rick Perry has many ideas about how to change the American government's founding document. From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments. The Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers.
Perry laid out these proposed innovations to the founding document in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. He has occasionally mentioned them on the campaign trail. Several of his ideas fall within the realm of mainstream conservative thinking today, but, as you will see, there are also a few surprises.
1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.
The nation's framers established a federal court system whereby judges with "good behavior" would be secure in their job for life. Perry believes that provision is ready for an overhaul.
"The Judges," reads Article III, "both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."
Perry makes it no secret that he believes the judges on the bench over the past century have acted beyond their constitutional bounds. The problem, Perry reasons, is that members of the judiciary are "unaccountable" to the people, and their lifetime tenure gives them free license to act however they want. In his book, the governor speaks highly of plans to limit their tenure and offers proposals about how to accomplish it.
"'[W]e should take steps to restrict the unlimited power of the courts to rule over us with no accountability," he writes in Fed Up! "There are a number of ideas about how to do this . . . . One such reform would be to institute term limits on what are now lifetime appointments for federal judges, particularly those on the Supreme Court or the circuit courts, which have so much power. One proposal, for example, would have judges roll off every two years based on seniority."
2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
Ending lifetime tenure for federal justices isn't the only way Perry has proposed suppressing the power of the courts. His book excoriates at length what he sees as overreach from the judicial branch. (The title of Chapter Six is "Nine Unelected Judges Tell Us How to Live.")
Giving Congress the ability to veto their decisions would be another way to take the Court down a notch, Perry says.
"[A]llow Congress to override the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, which risks increased politicization of judicial decisions, but also has the benefit of letting the people stop the Court from unilaterally deciding policy," he writes.
3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.
The Sixteenth Amendment gives Congress the "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." It should be abolished immediately, Perry says.
Calling the Sixteenth Amendment "the great milestone on the road to serfdom," Perry's writes that it provides a virtually blank check to the federal government to use for projects with little or no consultation from the states.
4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.
Overturning this amendment would restore the original language of the Constitution, which gave state legislators the power to appoint the members of the Senate.
Ratified during the Progressive Era in 1913 , the same year as the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment gives citizens the ability to elect senators on their own. Perry writes that supporters of the amendment at the time were "mistakenly" propelled by "a fit of populist rage."
"The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment)," he writes.
5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.
Of all his proposed ideas, Perry calls this one "the most important," and of all the plans, a balanced budget amendment likely has the best chance of passage.
"The most important thing we could do is amend the Constitution--now--to restrict federal spending," Perry writes in his book. "There are generally thought to be two options: the traditional 'balanced budget amendment' or a straightforward 'spending limit amendment,' either of which would be a significant improvement. I prefer the latter . . . . Let's use the people's document--the Constitution--to put an actual spending limit in place to control the beast in Washington."
A campaign to pass a balanced budget amendment through Congress fell short by just one vote in the Senate in the 1990s.
Last year, House Republicans proposed a spending-limit amendment that would limit federal spending to 20 percent of the economy. According to the amendment's language, the restriction could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress or by a declaration of war.
6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.
Despite saying last month that he was "fine with" states like New York allowing gay marriage, Perry has now said he supports a constitutional amendment that would permanently ban gay marriage throughout the country and overturn any state laws that define marriage beyond a relationship between one man and one woman.
"I do respect a state's right to have a different opinion and take a different tack if you will, California did that," Perry told the Christian Broadcasting Network in August. "I respect that right, but our founding fathers also said, 'Listen, if you all in the future think things are so important that you need to change the Constitution here's the way you do it'.
In an interview with The Ticket earlier this month, Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said that even though it would overturn laws in several states, the amendment still fits into Perry's broader philosophy because amendments require the ratification of three-fourths of the states to be added to the Constitution.
7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.
Like the gay marriage issue, Perry at one time believed that abortion policy should be left to the states, as was the case before the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. But in the same Christian Broadcasting Network interview, Perry said that he would support a federal amendment outlawing abortion because it was "so important...to the soul of this country and to the traditional values [of] our founding fathers."
Rick Perry has a record that should make all Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents cringe.
He is not the "conservative Republican" that he is trying to claim that he is. He is simply another in a long line of "RINOs" (Republicans in name only).
If Rick Perry becomes president, he will probably be very similar to George W. Bush. He will explode the size of the U.S. government and U.S. government debt, he will find sneaky ways to raise taxes, he will do nothing about the Federal Reserve or corruption in our financial system and he will push the agenda of the globalists and the United Nations at every turn, to our detriment.
Look, the truth is that another four years of Barack Obama would be a complete and total nightmare… if not the end of America as we know her. And almost everyone, except the leftist ideologues and the completely uninformed now agree that we need to elect anyone other than Barack Obama for a second term.
But from the sounds of it four years of Rick Perry, could be almost as bad.
America deserves better than the "lesser of two evils".
Unfortunately, the American people have been dead asleep and have been sending incompetents, con men and charlatans to Washington D.C. for decades.
Hopefully things will be different in 2012.
Unlike Perry, Obama is all hat and no cattle. There is no Obama thrust that Perry can't parry if he keeps his good humor and enthusiasm and reminds Americans that, yes, his flaws are large until you compare them with Obama's. So in the end, if he is the GOP choice he will get my support because one more term of Obama will destroy this country… but I have grave concerns about Perry!
h/t to The American Dream Jean Stoner, and Deonia Copeland, George King, Michael Carpenter and Anglo & Warbird from Sovereignty in Colorado. Sorry if I missed anyone. The negative information on Perry is just flying in as quickly or quicker than the positive!!
Additional Related Information:
Michelle Malkin: Rick Perry’s Back Obama-Style Medicine
Governor Perry’s Biggest Problem
More on Bilderberger Week including Agenda 21 and Rick Perry
Perry: Not a True Conservative
Rick Perry Tied to Agenda 21 Globalists
Ask Marion~
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