Posts Tagged ‘Rick Perry’

Republicans hold a weak hand in Washington but a stronger grip in states where voters have entrusted them with power. Performances there can boost not just the Republican image but bring the party back to power in Washington. More importantly, they can show conservative principles work. The “Red State Model” can, in the Wall Street Journal’s words, “Drive Republican Revival.”

Walter Russell Meade, one of our most brilliant thinkers, has written quite perceptively about the collapse of what he calls “the blue model.” These are states that have been firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party and their allies (unions-especially public employee unions; special interest groups — environmentalists among them). Together they have created a tax, spend and borrow model of governance that is leading to fiscal chaos. Policies have been adopted that have created a hostile business climate that has cramped growth and blighted the future of the middle class.

–SNIP– And therein lies an opportunity for the Republican Party.

While Barack Obama won re-election and the Senate remains in the hands of the Democrats, voters in 30 states put in power Republican governors, and 25 of those states have legislatures controlled by Republicans. The 2012 election sharpened the partisan divide in America between red states and blue states

Read more by Ed Lasky at AmericanThinker.com

Earlier this week (1/04), the Chicago Tribune ran a little noted editorial on the insider trading scandal plaguing Congress, calling out phony efforts to reform the rules and demanding that we finally put a stop to this outrageous and unethical behavior.

If you haven’t read the editorial yet, I recommend you do because while the professional political punditry class is more interested in superfluous items like the political horse race and candidate attire, the reality is that members of both parties in Washington, D.C., are abusing their positions and ordinary Americans have had enough.

As the editorial notes, “‘60 Minutes’ reported that Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering from Visa in 2008, just as credit card legislation started moving through the House. The Pelosis bought 5,000 shares at the IPO price of $44 a share. Two days later, the shares traded at $64. The legislation, which was likely to cut credit card company profits, went nowhere that year. It passed two years later.”

It’s not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

Read more by Rick Perry at ToThePointNews.com

As I’ve written about before, America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it — covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates — drone on with even less attention paid than usual.

Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season — in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention — places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. For that reason, America’s elections ironically serve to obsfuscate political reality even more than it usually is.

This would all be bad enough if “election season” were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a President’s term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war — both hot and cold — against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced, because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmann’s latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perry’s polling numbers.

Read more by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com

Michele Bachmann was the first GOP presidential candidate to demand Eric Holder’s resignation. Last Monday Rick Perry published an op-ed in The Washington Times demanding Mr. Holder’s resignation and yesterday morning Jon Huntsman also remarked that Mr. Holder should resign, yet the majority of the Old Media ignore them and the other congressmen who think Mr. Holder should resign.

Read more by Mary Chastain at BigJournalism.com

Straw poll results for Presidential GOP race for Monday September 5:
Walker 40%.
Perry 30%.
Paul 15%.
Ryan 5%.
Cain 4%.
Palin 4%.
Romney 2%.

Straw poll results for Presidential GOP race for Monday September 5 (without Ryan & Walker)
Perry 54%.
Paul 27%.
Cain 7%.
Palin 7%.
Romney 5%.

Overall numbers for Presidential GOP straw poll (without Ryan & Walker), both days
Perry 55%.
Paul 28%.
Romney 7%.
Palin 6%.
Cain 3%.
Bachmann 1%.

Straw poll results for GOP US Senate race for Monday September 5:
Neumann 67%.
Thompson 33%.
Lasee 0%.
Fitzgerald 0%.
Kanavas 0%.

Overall straw poll results for GOP US Senate race, both days
Neumann 71%.
Thompson 15%.
Fitzgerald 14%.
Kanavas 0%.
Lasee 0%.

Thanks to all who stopped by our booth!

Presidential Straw Poll Results:
Perry 38%.
Walker 21%.
Paul 18%.
Ryan 16%.
Romney 2%.
Bachmann 1%.
Palin 1%.
Cain 0%.

Presidential race results without Congressman Paul Ryan & Governor Scott Walker:
Perry 57%.
Paul 29%.
Romney 10%.
Bachmann 2%.
Palin 2%.
Cain 0%.

United States Senate Straw Poll Results:
Fitzgerald 25%.
Neumann 75%.
Thompson 0%.
Kanavas 0%.
Lasee 0%.

Come visit the RPMC booth at the St. Martin’s Fair and vote for your favorite candidate!

The fundamental facts of the presidential race at this moment are that unemployment is high, the economy is by far the most important issue to American voters, and President Obama’s handling of economic questions is overwhelmingly unpopular. Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and others are hammering the president daily on matters of job creation and economic growth.

Now some of Obama’s activist allies and supporters in the press are engaged in a sharply focused effort to change the subject. Even as economic anxieties continue to rise, some of the nation’s premier political journalists are consumed with the alleged influences of obscure religious philosophers on Republican candidates; on questions of creationism, evolution, and the age of the Earth; and on the fantasy that a Republican president might transform the United States into an Iranian-style theocracy.

by Byron York Chief Political Correspondent for the Washington Examiner

Some of the reaction to Politico’s tireless quest to find out if Democrats think Rick Perry is “dumb” centered on the fact reporters conveniently have yet to produce President Obama’s school records. That’s true–and a point worth making. But David Harsanyi has an excellent article on the other double standard in the Politico piece.

Harsanyi notes that Perry gets hit with the accusation he doesn’t stay up late reading Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute white papers because, apparently, he’d rather listen to his advisers. Harsanyi pounces:

Listen, I love reading a Cato white paper as much as the next guy, but that doesn’t make me smart; it makes me tragically boring. No doubt Barack Obama picked up his sad conviction in redistributionist economics perusing stacks of white papers—highlight marker within reach—but his presidency was won on crude progressive populism anchored in emotion, not reason. Policy ideas had little to do with Obama’s election victory, though they have almost everything to do with his failures as president.

Well said. The president ran the most vacuous, messianic campaign imaginable—and yet Perry is tagged as a dense would-be theocrat. Further, the press swooned over Obama’s cabinet picks–even as they dropped off one by one for getting caught cheating on their taxes—and the ridiculous notion that sending Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, to spend time with her husband’s donors in the Middle East, was the modern equivalent of Abraham Lincoln’s “team of rivals.”

Read more by Seth Mandel at Commentary Magazine.

He just got in the race, but Rick Perry is already Republicans’ top choice for the presidential nomination, according to a new Gallup Poll.

In the first long-running national poll taken since the Texas governor jumped into the 2012 presidential contest, Perry nabbed 29 percent of respondents’ support in the survey of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The poll was taken August 17 to 21, four days after Perry announced his candidacy.

Read more By Rachel Weiner, 8/24/2011 at The Washington Post

The following straw poll numbers includes Congressman Paul Ryan & Governor Scott Walker. Paul Ryan was added to poll on August 5, and Governor Walker was added on August 8. Both Ryan and Walker were added because of the demand of State Fair attendees who visited our booth.

Walker 24%.
Perry 20%.
Ryan 20%.
Paul 13%.
Bachmann 10%.
Palin 7%.
Cain 4%.
Romney 1%.
Christie 1%.

Perry wins Wisconsin State Fair GOP Straw poll

Perry 36%.
Paul 23%.
Bachmann 18%.
Palin 13%.
Cain 8%.
Romney 2%.

Invites fellow governors to join the effort

governor.state.tx.us, Monday, June 06, 2011 • Austin, Texas

Gov. Rick Perry has proclaimed Saturday, Aug. 6th, as a Day of Prayer and Fasting for our Nation to seek God’s guidance and wisdom in addressing the challenges that face our communities, states and nation. He has invited governors across the country to join him on Aug. 6th to participate in The Response, a non-denominational, apolitical, Christian prayer meeting hosted by the American Family Association at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Gov. Perry also urged fellow governors to issue similar proclamations encouraging their constituents to pray that day for unity and righteousness for our states, nation and mankind.

Read more at http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/16246/