Out of all the potential Republican nominees, Rick Perry scares me the most as an Obama supporter.
I don’t like Perry at all, but I’ll agree he’s a very savvy politician who knows exactly how to read the political winds. He knows exactly how to pander to the Religious Right. In 2005, he ceremoniously signed the Texas constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage at a Ft. Worth mega church. Of course, constitutional amendments don’t need to be signed into law by the governor, but Perry was able to rally the faithful and scare off a potential Kay Bailey Hutchison primary challenge.
He used his connections with the media to sandbag Debra Medina when she started to pick up momentum in the 2010 Republican primary by having Glenn Beck bring up the 9/11 ‘truther’ question.
Perry pandered to the tea party crowd with his talk of secession during the worst of the recession. However, as the tea partiers started getting crazier, he quietly has distanced himself from the fringe.
I’m not sure he is going to run in 2012, however. It is always difficult to knock off an incumbent and it might be a bit too soon to elect another Texas governor. I could see him finishing out his term as TX governor, perhaps delivering the keynote speech at the convention, and appearing on Fox News every chance he gets.
Thoughts on a potential Perry run? Are there any rumors of skeletons in the closet that might keep him out of a national race?
Sure he’ll be able to fire up the base, but is there anyone who’d vote for him who isn’t already part of the Republican base? He might end up with the nomination, but there’s no way that he’d beat Obama (or rather, if he does, it would be because things have gotten so bad that anyone could beat Obama).
This seems like a mallet with which he could be repeatedly hammered by a Republican primary opponent (or Obama, should Perry become the GOP nominee). They could contrast this with their own “unceasing, unwavering loyalty” to the USA.
I enjoyed an article by Bob Moser about Perry potentially running. If I may quote a little:
"…permit me to ask you to close your eyes for a minute and meditate on this image: Rick Perry on a debate stage. National TV, scorching floodlights, scores of millions of viewers. Hair just so, Grecian Forumla’d to a lustrous black sheen. He is furrowing his brow, squinting in an effort to look Presidential, reminding himself: Try and not sound exactly like George W. The Yankees don’t like that. He is sporting his lucky pink tie. He is fidgety. He is rarin’ to go!
Across the stage, Barack Obama. Supremely confident. Gray-headed. Exuding cool rationality.
And now imagine the questions from the panel of reporters. George Will, George Stephanopolous, Anderson Cooper, Lady Gaga—doesn’t matter. It goes something like this:
“Governor Perry, you said before the campaign began that the single most important issue in 2012 was the Tenth Amendment. Do you honestly believe that the majority of Americans consider states’ rights a higher priority than improving health care or education or national security?”
“Governor Perry, you have hinged your campaign on your success in bringing jobs to the State of Texas. But during the period you boast about, your state added more minimum-wage jobs than the 49 other states combined. Texas now has more citizens living in poverty, more uninsured children and adults than any other state. Is that your vision for America?”
“As governor of Texas, Mr. Perry, you have doled out hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, along with thousands of high-level government jobs and appointments, to your largest campaign contributors. As president, do you intend to continue this practice?”"
It’s a decidedly perverse world where the fact that over one in four children in Texas (IIRC) have no health insurance and fewer than 2% of children in Massachusetts are uninsured is the biggest problem the former Massachusetts governor faces in a potential matchup.
I am hoping that he resigns to run for President. Then he would no longer be my Governor and wouldn’t become my President. This would be a win-win for me.
It would surprise me. Perry is a smart politician. He must realize that 2012 is going to be an uphill battle for any Republican candidate. I think Perry, like many of the other more astute politicians, will wait until 2016.
Granted that can backfire. A lot of top Democrats thought Bush would be unbeatable in 1992.
Oh come on, you know perfectly well the right-wing-spin-machine will turn his succession talk into being a “Real American, like our founding fathers, rebelling against tyrany!”
Really? That’s an aphrodisiac for the base. They’ll eat that crap right up. And if he makes it to the nomination, he can be comforted by the fact that the high road-taking Democrats won’t bring it up.