[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
United States News Title: Rick Perry, Fading on Cue For many Republicans and other victims of wishful thinking, Rick Perry is a dream candidate. He is, so say the pundits who always know best, everything that George Bush claimed to be but was not: a fifth generation Texan, a rancher, a tough and principled leader who is not afraid to handle the big issues, whether the issues are job creation, social security, or Texas' constitutional right to control its own affairs. It helps that he is virile and ruggedly handsome. I won't presume to challenge Rick Perry's good looks or Texas credentials. It's the other items in his portfolio of assets that seem more than a little overvalued. Texas Leftists who hate Perry--and their hatred is the best thing Perry has going for him--point out that the governor's success in job creation is largely an illusion. Rising petroleum prices are the largest part of the story, and Perry's much vaunted fiscal conservatism has more to do with the simple fact that the Texas legislature, which only meets every other year, has a narrow window of opportunity in which to work its mischief. Texas' sound economy and comparative freedom have everything to do with the character of generations of Texans and not much to do with any particular administration. To illustrate the truth of this, consider the opposite case of the state I live in as punishment for transgresssions during an earlier life: Illinois. In Illinois, nearly every major politician is a known crook, and governor after governor has ended up in a federal penitentiary. When Illinoisans try to explain their disdain for President Obama, they always fall back on his close and continuing ties to the Chicago machine. Obama does not even try to conceal his connections. He and his former chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel slipped out of the Blagoyevich fiasco, and the President has replaced Emanuel (now mayor of Chicago) with Bill Daley, brother of former mayor Richie and son of the legendary boss, Richard Daley. Even a good governor, which we are unlikely to get, could do nothing in the sinkhole that is Illinois, just as the combined evil of Richie Daley, Rahm Emanuel, and Barack Obama could do little to hurt Texas. It is the people who make the government and not vice versa. I spend a fair amount of time in Texas, where I have many friends, all solid conservative Republicans, and hardly a one of them has much use for Perry. Oh, one or two will vote for him and give him money. So would I, if I thought I could buy the ear of a President. By the way, my second law of political elections is this: Only vote for someone you know well enough to take your phone call if he wins. But among Texas conservatives I have hardly ever heard a kind word said on Perry's behalf. Among the most common epithets are: egocentric, treacherous, hypocritical, shallow, unprincipled, and vindictive. Yes, these are qualities we all demand in our political leaders, but Perry stands out from the pack. Perry is supposed to be a conservative, but apart from the usual yahoo speeches about cutting taxes, seceding from the Union, and putting Jesus' picture on the $100 bill (I made the last one up, but it would not be out of character), there is nothing especially conservative about the former Democrat who managed Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign in Texas. He now claims he didn't know about Gore's wierd environmentalist fantasies, which were all over the media during the campaign. Perhaps his campaign managers believe him. Like every aspiring conservative, Perry tries to play to three groups in the conservative coalition: businessmen looking for favors from government, moralistic Evangelicals who think they can legislate away the sexual revolution, and nationalists who don't see why the culture of their towns, state, and country has to be transformed by massive immigration from the Third World and the economy ruined by the comparative tax advantages enjoyed by foreign businesses. Since the businessmen deliver the fuel for his campaign, they generally get taken care of. The Evangelicals are pandered to by Perry's silly profession of belief in "intelligent design." The nationalists are more or less ignored--whom are they going to vote for, Democrats? At the beginning of his Presidential campaign, the strategy seemed to be working, but it unravelled in the debates. Many Evangelicals are actually angry with Perry's dictatorial decision to require Texas girls to be innoculated with the HPV vaccine, which protects against some forms of cervical cancer. Michelle Bachmann blasted him in the debates, and Perry's sheepish excuses cost him some Evangelical support. But Bachmann's display of ignorance, combined with her declaration that some girls suffered terrible side-effects, did her more harm than good, at least with Republicans who do not belong to her religious cult. All she had to say was that as useful as the vaccine might be, the governor of an American state, let alone Texas, does not routinely presume to tell families how to rear their children. At the very least, he might have waited for approval from the legislature. What most disturbed conservative Christians was the assumption that their church-going daughters were going to contract an STD if the state did not protect them, and they insist that such a decision should be left up to the parents. It is not as if a cervical cancer epidemic were ravaging Texas. Perry defends his unilateral decision by referring to a woman he knew, who died of cervical cancer. In other words, his personal feelings trump every concern of law and morality. More disturbing is the deaf ear the governor turns to Texans who want to curb illegal immigration and who oppose his "Trans-Texas Corridor," which confiscates propertry, overrides local authorities, and sets up a toll road system linking Texas with Mexico. The corridor will enrich Spanish-owned Cintra and the politicians Cintra buys, but it will also make it even easier for Mexicans to enter Texas. Adding insult to injury, Perry also wants to use taxpayers' money to pay for the college education of young illegals. Yes, yes, they have heard all the arguments from Barack Obama in promoting his own "Dream Act." Why punish a child for a mistake--rather crime--committed by his parents? In receiving a college degree, these illegals will become worthy taxpaying citizens. But what if you are a simple farmer who doesn't think college is essential to leading a decent life? What if no one in your family has ever gone to college? And, why, when I am out of a job, do I have to pay taxes to help someone else's children, when I cannot even help my own? Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are birds of a feather. Both think this election is only about jobs and do not seem to understand that many Americans, even those with jobs, are fearful of an increasingly dismal American future. Either might win the nomination and the election, but neither seems to understand the anger of conservative voters. If Mitt Romney's Achilles' Heel is the universal healthcare program he enacted in Massachussets--widely seen as the model for Obamacare--Perry's is his version of the President's "Dream Act." Both are out of touch with American realities. Perhaps it is just temporary, but we no longer have the resources to overthrow uncooperative governments all over the world while at the same time expanding social services to cover every non-American who can sneak into the country. The way things are going, any reasonable facsimile of a candidate may be able to defeat Barack Obama, but the Republican Party so far has failed to produce a possible candidate that is not either ridiculous (Bachmann, Santorum, Cain) or unprincipled and out of touch (Perry, Romney). Most conservatives will probably vote on the principle of anyone but Obama, but if they sell themselves too cheap to the party of George W. Bush, Rick Perry, Mitch McConnell, and Mitt Romney, they will once again blow any real opportunity they might have to arrest the steady American decline. Perry is a clever politician,and he may yet find the right words to assuage the Tea Party voters who really only want someone to tell them the lies they long to hear.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|