Rick Perry: Going Big, Not Going Home

Two weeks ago nearly everyone had written off Rick Perry. His poor debate performances and embarrassing gaffes had made even his most ardent supporters avert their eyes. But then Herman Cain began to self-destruct and while the media and pundits were busy with the postmortem examination of the Cain campaign, the Perry camp was busy finding a way to get back in the game.

Fortuitously (or perhaps providentially), Perry had hired members of FL Gov. Rick Scott's media team just a couple weeks before the disastrous Michigan debate. It was very clear that from the minute Perry uttered the now infamous "oops" his team was in full damage-control mode. It was almost as if Perry had been prepped on how to respond in the event a gaffe occurred (which isn't a bad strategy for any candidate in such a high-stakes game). Most people agree that the aftermath of Perry's brain freeze was handled as well as it could have been. He faced it head on and tore the bandage off with a smile and the right mix of self-deprecating humor and Obama bashing.

Of course, lost in all of this mess was Perry's bold flat tax proposal, which has received some pretty high marks and because it is optional, would actually have a chance of winning bipartisan support sometime this decade. He saw Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan and raised ante by proposing a similar plan without the sales tax that most people disliked about Cain's plan. It's been endorsed by Mr. Flat Tax himself, Steve Forbes and has been praised by many other conservatives.

Now, he's raised the ante again by threatening to blow up the D.C. Beltway Bureaucracy. It's a desperate move, to be sure. It won't win him any friends in the D.C. cocktail party circuit - Karl Rove and Company must certainly be burning up their smart phones threatening to ruin the careers of anyone who's considering sending money to Perry. Perry said this in his "Uproot and Overhaul Washington" speech in Iowa on Tuesday:

"It is time to tear down the monuments to bureaucratic failure, and in their place build a smaller, more efficient federal government that puts the American People first. The Washington Insiders won’t address Beltway decay, they won’t try a totally new way, because they like things as they are. The lobbyists make their living on protecting corporate loopholes, and securing earmarks for the special interests they represent. The status quo is good to the Washington Insiders. It’s good to the overpaid bureaucrats. It’s good for the power-players who can trade favors to build fiefdoms of influence. While the rest of America remains mired in the ruin caused by Washington’s out-of–touch, big government economic policies, Washington is doing fine. In fact, the Washington metro area is now the most affluent metropolitan area in the country. That’s because all the lobbyists, contractors and over-paid czars and bureaucrats haven’t suffered one bit in the worst economy in 70 years. While Main Street’s windows have been boarded up, the cash continues to flow to Wall Street financiers and Beltway profiteers."

[Ouch...this is probably very awkward for Newt]

In addition, he wants to limit the terms of federal judges, make congress a part-time job and cut salaries and budgets, privatize the TSA and Freddie and Fannie, and get rid of the czars and several federal agencies, including, of course, the Department of Energy. He will defund Planned Parenthood and also vows he "will fight in every corner of this country for a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution."

If you read the transcript of the speech and pictured it being delivered by Reagan or even Marco Rubio you'd probably stand up and salute and cheer. Or at least give a mini fist pump while sitting on the couch with laptop. This is exactly the message we conservatives want to hear:

"The issue this election is not whether Washington is broken, but how we go about fixing it. There are two approaches, and even my own party is split. There are some who want to tinker with the status quo. They want to work within the current system to achieve marginal change. Then there are those who believe, as I do, that Washington is too broken to be fixed by tinkering on the margins. I do not believe Washington needs a new coat of paint, it needs a complete overhaul. We need to uproot, tear down and rebuild Washington, D.C. and our federal institutions."

But then....oops...it was delivered by Rick Perry. We hold our breath when he opens his mouth because we're not sure what...if anything...is going to come out.

But then again, he's been delivering strong performances on radio and TV. He's warm, authentic, and likable in those formats and contrary to the debate performances, he appears to be knowledgeable and competent. And as Aaron Gardner pointed out yesterday, he's going after Obama in an excellent new ad running in Iowa.

This brings us back around to Perry's media team, which is sinking $1 million into a national ad campaign on Fox News. In addition to the "That's Pathetic" ad, they've been running a very effective "I'm a doer, not a talker" ad:

"If you're looking for a slick politician or a guy with great teleprompter skills, we already have that--and he's destroying our economy. I'm a doer, not a talker. In Texas, we created 40% of the new jobs in the entire country since June of 2009, and we cut a record $15 billion from our state budget. Now they say we can't do that in Washington. Well, they're wrong, and they need to go."

It's running up to ten times a day and, combined with the populist message of the ad calling Obama's laziness comment "pathetic" and saying his policies are "socialist," it's a very effective campaign. There's another ad in the series, this one focusing on Congressional insider trading:

All of this adds up to a candidate who is still in the game. Perry's poll numbers are still tanking but this race has been like the weather in Ohio: if you don't like it, wait an hour and it will change. Newt is the flavor of the week, but his many years on the payroll of Freddie Mac will hurt his poll numbers and certainly his credibility when criticizing the black holes of Fannie and Freddie. I have serious doubts that he will survive the onslaught of ethics questions, let alone the longstanding moral questions. This will leave an opening for Perry to claw his way back into the race.

Of course we're all are thinking ahead to a debate between Obama and Perry and we're cringing. Visions of 5-point plans that suddenly turn into 2-point plans and that awkward moment when Perry realizes he has too many fingers on his left hand. But there's also the possibility of a debate between a straight-talker and an elitist Ivy League demagogue. Results vs. Rhetoric. Perry could even use a Reagan-style "There you go again" line effectively against Obama's predictable talking points. I'm not saying Perry could "win" a debate against Obama in the technical sense, just saying it might not be a total disaster.

I'm not at the point of being a Perry supporter, but I like him a lot better this week than I did two weeks ago. He has proven that he can put together a quality team and manage a crisis effectively. (The fact that the crisis was self-imposed is, of course, a serious concern.) More important, of all the candidates, he has put forth some of the boldest proposals we've seen for reform of the tax code and the way things are done in Washington. That at least, affords him a second look.

Cross-posted at Red State

GOP Presidential Debate on MSNBC

"I can get you a gallon of gas for a dime," Ron Paul said.

A silver dime, that is.  Ha, ha....  Ron Paul also warned us that border fence might be some kind of government conspiracy to keep American citizens in rather than keeping illegal immigrants out.

WHY IS RON PAUL IN THESE DEBATES?  He is clearly off the GOP reservation. 

Now that I got that off my chest, I can continued with some more reasonable thoughts about the debate.

Oh, except for wondering why Jon Huntsman is in the debate.  I mean, he has a nice tan and everything (though I suspect he fake bakes), but that's not a reason to be permitted in the GOP debate. Though he continues to try to repackage himself as a Republican, he will not be able to overcome is close alignment with the Obama administration as the recent Ambassador to China and his left-leaning positions. 

Moderator John Harris from Politico baited Jon Huntsman by questioning him about his Tweet that mocked the GOP candidates who cast doubt upon man-made global warming and evolution.  Huntsman made it clear that the general voting public was way too smart to vote for some backwoods yahoo who didn't believe in the proven religion of man-made global warming!

Of course, the left-leaning moderators used him to push their agenda.  The question was a gem: "You yourself have said the party is in danger of becoming anti-science. Who on the stage is anti science?"  Huntsman responded:

"Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I am saying is that in order for the Republican party to win, we can't run from science. We can't run from mainstream conservative philosophy.  We've got to win voters. We've got to do what I did as governor when I was elected. We reached out and brought in independents. I got independents, I got conservative Democrats. If we want to win in 2012 we've got to make sure that we've got somebody that can win based on numbers and the math that will get us there. And by making comments that basically don't reflect the reality of the situation we turn people off."

Like John McCain, right? Someone should tell Huntsman about the recent Fox News poll showing 45% believe in the "Biblical account of creation as told in the Bible" including 55% of Republicans and Tea Party members, 42% of Democrats and 31% of Independents.  Hardly the wing-nut belief that elitist Huntsman and his cronies in the MSM would like to portray.  Poll after poll repeats similar results showing that despite the State's mandatory evolutionary indoctrination in public schools, Americans still cling to their religion.  Also, 48% of Americans now believe warnings about global warming have been exaggerated.  So clearly, Jon Huntsman is outside the mainstream and needs a spell in the time-out corner for a big, fat attitude adjustment! But PLEASE STOP the sanctimonious lecturing!

I really don't understand why the Republicans go into the belly of the liberal beast for these debates.  They know the moderators are going to try to pit them against each other in a way that gives ammunition to the Obama campaign and they know that they're going to aim for "gotcha" questions that will provide soundbites for Tingles Matthews and Ed Schultz to salivate over for weeks to come.  Sure, MSNBC will get a 2-hour bump in their ratings, but why should the GOP air their family squabbles in this forum at this point in the race?  Of course, the eventual nominee will have to suffer through it in the general election, but it's counterproductive to subject our candidates to this process at this point in time. 

Harris then turned his keen moderator's eye on Rick Perry and asked, "Governor Perry, which scientist have you found most credible on this? Are there specific scientists or specific theories you've found particularly compelling?"

Right....because... Harris really wanted to know that....because maybe he had a list of approved anti-global warming scientists that he could compare to Perry's list? Or perhaps he wanted to have a substantive debate about some of the "specific theories" detractors have advanced?  As if Harris would recognize one if it hit him upside the head.   Why didn't he ask Huntsman to cite his sources?  Or Romney?  Like I said, "gotcha" questions. 

Perry basically blew off the question by patiently explaining that the EPA regulations based on something that is not settled science is crippling the economy. He should have known that the liberal moderators were going to throw that one at him.  I suspect he'll be better prepared next time and won't fumble that question again.  Still, it's an example of why primary debates in hostile venues are just a bad idea. 

It's becoming clear that the field is narrowing quickly.  Rep. Michele Bachmann, who won the Iowa straw poll was almost a non-entity tonight.  Since Gov. Rick Perry entered the race, Bachmann has been barely a blip on the radar screen in recent polls. Sadly, tonight, she was barely visible. and was clearly bumped down to the 2nd tier. 

The moderators treated this debate as a two-man race. Most of the questions were directed to Romney and Perry and many of the other candidates took the opportunity to pile on them.  Perry, maybe because he was the new guy in the debate took most of the heat, saying that he felt like a "pinata." 

There were a couple exchanges that I feel were significant and give us some important insights into the candidates.  The first is a discussion of Social Security.  Gov. Perry was asked about the assertion in his book, Fed Up, that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. 

For the record, here's the definition of a Ponzi scheme (thanks to Wikipedia):

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going. The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors." 

Perry: 

"And people who are on social security today - men and women who are receiving those benefits today [looks straight into the camera] and individuals who are on my end of the line pretty quick to get them - they don't need to worry about anything. The Republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program. And it is a monstrous lie. It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids who are 25 or 30 years old today, "You are paying into a program that's going to be there." Anybody that's for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids and it's not right. "

Can anyone refute that statement?  

Perry, responding to the moderator's comments that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney have been critical of Perry's references to a Ponzi scheme:

"You know Karl has been over the top in his remarks, so I'm not responsible for Karl any more.  If Vice President Cheney or anyone else says that the program we have in place today and young people who are paying into that expect that program to be sound and expect to receive benefits when they reach retirement age - that is just a lie!  And I don't care what anyone says. We know that.  The American people know that, and more importantly, those 25 -year-olds know that."

Romney [to the moderators]:

"The issue is not the funding of Social Security. We all agree, and have for years, that the funding system for Social Security is not working. Congress has been raiding the dollars for Social Security to pay for government expenditures. That's wrong. The funding, however, is not the issue.  The issue in the book Fed Up, Governor, is you say that by any measure Social Security is a failure.  You can't say that to tens of millions of Americans who live on Social Security and have lived on it. The Governor says, "Look, the states ought to be able to opt out of Social Security."  Our nominee has to be someone who isn't committed to abolishing Social Security, but is committed to saving Social Security. We've always had, at the heart of our party, the recognition that we want to care for those in need, and our seniors have the need of Social Security. I will make sure that we keep the program and we make it financially secure, we save Social Security and under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it's a failure! It's working for millions of Americans and I'll keep it working for millions of Americans and we gotta do that as a party."

 Did you catch that? "Under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it's a failure."

So does he think that the nearly-bankrupt program that will fail if not radically reformed is successful?  That should be a huge red flag.  We cannot afford a candidate who does not grasp the urgency of the Social Security  - let's call it what it is - Ponzi scheme. If Romney thinks it's as easy as halting the raids by the general fund, he's seriously delusional. Or lying to our children and grandchildren. 


The whole exchange brought back some memories of this debate:

Governor Perry, explaining the executive order he signed mandating that young girls and teenagers be vaccinated with the Gardasil HPV vaccine (my comments in red):

"There was an opt-out in that piece - it wasn't legislation it was an executive order. I hate cancer. We passed a $300 million cancer initiative that legislative session [big government alert!!] of which we're trying to find over the next ten years cures to cancers.  Cervical cancer is caused by HPV. We wanted to bring that to the attention of these thousands of - tens of thousands of young people in our state [and the only way they could come up with to educate them was to mandate a vaccine???] We allowed for an opt-out. I don't know what's more strong for parental rights than having that opt-out [um....how about an OPT-IN!].  There's a long list of diseases that cost our state and cost our country. It was on that list.  Now, did we handle it right? Should we have talked to the legislature first before we did it? Probably so. [No, you didn't handle it right. This shouldn't have even been a matter for the government to discuss. Period. It's a private matter between parents, their children and their physician. Period.] But at the end of the day, I will always err on the side of saving lives. "

Rick Santorum's response echoes my own:

"Governor Perry is out there claiming about state's rights and state's rights.  How about parental rights being more important than state's rights? How about having instead of an "opt out" an "opt in?" If you really cared, you could make the case instead of forcing me as a parent...I am offended that the government would tell me - and by an executive order, without even going through the process of letting the people have any kind of input - I would expect this from President Obama. I would not expect this from someone who's calling himself a conservative governor."

Amen, Senator Santorum!  I really, really like Santorum. I would vote for him in a heartbeat.  I find myself agreeing with nearly everything he says and wish that his campaign would gain some traction.  I'd love to at least see him as someone's VP.

Romney was asked to respond to the Gardasil flap.  It was clear that he couldn't care less about such trivial matters and rambled aimlessly along both sides of the issue for a few minutes before finding his way back to his own comfortable message:

"I believe in parental rights and parental responsibilites for kids.  My guess is that Governor Perry would like to do it a different way the second time through. We've each taken a mulligan or two. And my guess is he'd do it differently. He just said he'd do it though legislation next time through. And I recognize that he wanted very badly, that he wanted to provide better healthcare to his kids and prevent the spread of cancer. I agree with those who said he went about it the wrong way but his heart was in the right place. Right now we have people who on this stage who care very much about this country. We love America. America is in crisis. There are differences between us but we all see that this president's got to go. This president's a nice guy but he doesn't have a clue how to get this country working again."

While this was painful to watch, it's an excellent example of Romney's constant wavering in the middle.  Instead of having a willingness to take a stand on an issue and fight for it, he's more comfortable in the squishy middle where he can broker a deal and ask everyone to get along.  If that's what you think this country needs, then Romney is your man.


While I have some serious reservations about Perry (I hated his answer on Gardasil - hated it!), at least he's willing to stake out a position and stand by it. I will give him that. The problem is, I don't always agree with his positions.  That said, I probably do agree with him on 90%+ of issues.  It puts him far ahead of Romney at this point and since it's highly unlikely Santorum will be the candidate, we're running out of options.   


Winner of the debate?  No winner.  Romney didn't lose. Perry didn't lose, neither did he have a winning performance, though I suspect he'll get a bump in the polls because he is infinitely more likable than Romney.  The second tier candidates stayed at the second tier. The should-not-be-candidates still should not be candidates.   

Rick Perry is right - the feds should stay out of education

The Fordham Institute, a generally conservative-leaning education think tank wrote an opinion piece critical of Texas governor (and possible presidential candidate) Rick Perry's education policy.  In "Good for Texas. Good for  America?" Chester Finn first blamed "cocky" Texans (in general) for saddling the rest of us with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which ended up being a costly, regulatory nightmare that emphasized testing, testing, and more testing with a patchwork of state standards trying to conform to burdensome federal regulations.  By the time this federal  bureaucracy trickled down to the local level, school boards and teachers were left "teaching to the test" with the threat of harsh penalties from the Feds always looming.  


Finn acknowledges that the biggest flaw in NCLB was the loss of state control:

"NCLB tried. It tried harder than any federal education law in history. Its shortcomings are due in large measure to its architects’ failure to distinguish between what a state government in a place like Austin can make happen in K-12 education and what Uncle Sam can bring about."

He then goes on to criticize Perry for acknowledging that very thing - for saying that Texans wanted to take matters into their own hands do education their own way, without interference from the federal government:

"Governor Perry heads into his presidential quest with a different blind-spot, in some ways the obverse of Bush’s. He is best known in education (and several other domains) for his adamant refusal to let Texas be pushed or pulled at all by Washington or other forces outside the Lone Star borders. That’s why he vehemently refused to seek Race to the Top funding. (Texas’s share could have been $700 million.)

About RTTT he said:“We would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children’s future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington.”

But Uncle Sam isn’t the only education scarecrow in Perry’s wheat field. Consider the Common Core standards for reading and math. Several months before the draft product of that initiative was even ready for inspection, he declared that “I will not commit Texas taxpayers to…the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national standards and tests."

I say good for Texas!!  More states should stand up and refuse to take the carrots the federal government is dangling because those carrots have mighty long strings attached. 

Finn goes on to say that many states are desperate for federal handouts and it's not fair to deprive them of this money.  Apparently, Rick Perry is setting a bad precedent - or a bad example for other governors.  He even goes as far as to say that in "gravely ill jurisdictions such as Ohio and Michigan...Uncle Sam might help reformers duke it out with entrenched unions."  


Really?  The Obama Department of Education is going to let Governor Kasich use NCLB and RTT money to battle unions?  The National Labor Relations Board is having the vapors as we speak. 


Finn continues:

"Yes, one can pledge allegiance to the tenth amendment and declare that such challenges are the states’ problems to solve if they want to and can. But is that the best thing in the twenty-first century for a big modern country that is being outpaced in education (and economic growth) by nations around the planet? And is it the best thing for 55 million kids, many of whom today face dim futures that could be brightened by a better education? Few deny that today’s federal role in K-12 schooling needs major surgery. But with a deft scalpel, not a cleaver. If Perry brings only a Texas chainsaw to the task, it could turn out that projecting another set of Lone Star precedents upon all of American education would be one more mistake."

Yes, pledging allegiance to the tenth amendment is the best thing!  The Federal government has no business meddling in education. It is a state function and the sooner we send it back there,  the better we'll be.  The Federal government is the problem, not the solution.  Part of the reason education is so expensive is the myriad of rules and regulations imposed by programs such as NCLB and RTTT.  Once you gut all those regulations, cut all those jobs at the Department of Education, cut all the jobs of people who must administer all those rules and regulations, states won't need all those carrots the Feds are dangling. 


I don't agree with Rick Perry on every issue, but on this one he gets an A+ in my book.