This is a discussion forum and all of the other threads about specific candidates are to discuss the candidate, criticize/bash the candidate, discuss election strategy, things of that nature. Some part of that will be the posting of links, sure, and news items.
I don’t think this message board needs a thread that is just you posting Rick Perry links, though. Last I checked Google News, Bing News, or 100 other aggregators can do a much more efficient job of that than you can.
I thought it was pretty much understood due to ancient laws of common sense that if you’re posting news articles anywhere on the SDMB it is because you want other people to discuss them with you. Sometimes that might even involve someone saying “those articles aren’t really very interesting and don’t really say much of value.”
If you just want this thread to be a news aggregator for Rick Perry then I’ll just stay away from it, I use Google Reader for my news aggregation.
I have the exact opposite take. I think Bachmann has gotten a lot of press but she will ultimately be a minor player in all of this. I think she may be less than Howard Dean in terms of importance in this election.
Bachmann comes off almost as a caricature candidate, Perry just seems more mainstream in his actions and manner. That’s what makes Perry kind of unsettling to me, he has that veneer of being a mainstream politician, reinforced by him holding major office for over a decade, in reality I think he’s the most extreme candidate and the most dangerous in terms of what would become of the country if he were President.
It’s OK, she does the same thing to leftists who admit a dissatisfaction with Obama, only it’s from a different pile of manure.
Perry is a dangerous candidate for the Republican Party. He’s very likely to be capable of knocking off Romney in the primaries, and once his actual views are on commercials every night for three months, he’s dead meat nationally, and he’s not going to reflect well on the party that nominated him.
How has Perry been continuously returned to office? He seems to have enthusiastic support but based on what I’ve seen he’s so divisive even many Texas Republicans oppose him. You would think the disaffected Texas Republicans + the Democrats in Texas would represent a big enough portion of the population to have ended this guy’s political career years ago.
Something I read the other day by a Texas politician was that when George W. Bush ran for President, he said that when Bush he knew Texas Democratic party power brokers who actually helped and worked with the Bush campaign because he was so popular and had always been a great governor to work with. This same politician said that there won’t be a single Democrat in Texas working for Rick Perry.
He lucked out in having elections in two cycles that were really good years for the GOP (2002 and 2010) and in 2006 having the opposition split between three candidates (letting him win with only 40% of the vote in his favor).
Well, except that he stomped the shit out of a more moderate Hutchison in the 2010 Republican primary, in a race in which an avowed Tea Party candidate got a noticeable part of the vote.
That’s true, the claim that Perry is a tax and spend Republican was put forward by a Texas GOP group but in terms of raw voters the Texas GOP could be fairly united behind Perry.
I have other options at my disposal, so your account is suspended for 24 hours. The next time I screw up, you have several acceptable ways to tell me how bad a job I’m doing. You can send me a message by email or PM or start a thread in ATMB about how much I suck. The above is not an option.
The truth is, even as bad as Obama’s doing, it seems likely that he’s going to beat whomever the GOP puts out there (some current polling notwithstanding; that’s going to settle out by next year). Every single one of the GOP crop has flaws that consign them to the Island of Misfit Toys, and none of them have the kind of broad appeal that will win the general election. Actually, Huntsman has the most sense of the bunch, but he’s going nowhere fast. I think Martin Hyde’s right in that the GOP needs to rebrand; they need to lose the angry/scary/hyper-religious crowd and try to build a different, more sensible, centrist coalition. Not that I want them to do that, since I’m a Democrat.
Paul Burka is Senior Executive Editor at Texas Monthly. Many of his recent blog posts have to do with Perry & are worth reading if for those who are interested. In response toTime Magazine’s piece on how Perry is changing the rules in politics by avoiding the Iowa straw poll, he explained:
As president, Obama’s been a go by the book, play by the rules type of guy, to his detriment, it appears. Perry seems to understand that sometimes you can win the game by not playing, or by blatantly breaking the rules and daring the ref to call you on it.
I don’t put much stock in any politician any more. It really is remarkable, though, that this thread (and media coverage) offers plenty of vitriol and reasons why Obama supporters would hate, hate hate a President Perry. But nothing so far (AFAI can see) why the general electorate should decide against Perry and allow him to beat the sad self-defeating limp noodle that Obama has become. And Shayna’s record-breaking ascent to Donald Duckville is a sight to behold.
If this is the best you can do, Perry is going to be president, no doubt about it.
