Posts Tagged ‘Mitt Romney’

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The Case for Rick Perry

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Ace of Spades makes his case for Rick Perry here.

Since that piece came out December 19, it’s hardly cutting edge news. But I’ve been ruminating on it for a while to try and figure out if I have anything more to add. I think I do. And with the Iowa Caucuses looming, I probably should.

I haven’t covered much of the 2012 Presidential race, mainly because I’ve been focusing on the Texas Senate Race and everyone and their dog was blogging every twist in the POTUSA race.

OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!

Plus I don’t have cable, so I wouldn’t be able to watch the interminable numerous debates.

Finally, a baseball team the Astros can beat

Which is why I didn’t see Perry commit his brain freezes, of which there were many. (My theory is that he was still hopped up on goofballs from his back operation.)

Percocet makes me see tiny little Jim Hightowers, and I have to grab and crush each and every one of them

Having lived in Texas for the entirety of Rick Perry’s tenure as governor, I can attest that he is not a perfect candidate. There have been times (Gardasil, the Trans-Texas Corridor) when he’s strayed from conservative principles. And he’s not as polished as Mitt Romney or as articulate as Newt Gingrich.

But Perry isn’t running against the second coming of Ronald Reagan, or even Sarah Palin. Every other major Republican contender is not only at least as flawed, they’re considerably more so.

  • Despite cheer-leading from the likes of Kathryn Jean Lopez and Jennifer Rubin, Mitt Romney has always struck me as a phony without any real core convictions except that he should be in charge; sort of the Republican answer to Bill Clinton, without the charm or adultery. Pick an issue and Romney’s been on both sides of it at one time or another. He seems the most likely of all the major candidates to be praised by The New York Times and The Washington Post for “growing” in office. Romney is most likely to disappoint me in caving in to D.C.’s usual free-spending, pork-barrel log-rolling.
  • I could get behind voting for the Newt Gingrich of 1994, the one whose laser-like focus on the holding the Democrats accountable for their misdeed and promoting the Contract With America helped Republicans take the House and Senate, set the stage for a welfare reform and helped (temporarily) balance the budget. Sadly, that Gingrich is not up on offer. We have to deal with the idea-a-minute-and-many-of-them-bad, ex-lobbyist, “Big Government Conservative” Newt Gingrich of 2012, the one so devastatingly and accurately skewered by Mark Steyn in this week’s National Review. (As Bruce Sterling once said at a Turkey City Writer’s Workshop, “Cruel, but fair!”) No matter how many times he tries to sound like Reagan, there are all those other times when he sounds like everyone from Al Gore to Faith Popcorn. I imagine that I would be disappointed many times in a Gingrich Presidency. Unlike Romney, I’m sure Gingrich would find entirely new and innovative ways to disappoint me.
  • I could almost get behind Ron Paul, based on his absolute, rock-steady position on the biggest problem facing America: out-of-control government spending and ever-increasing size and power of the federal government. The debt bomb is an existential threat to American prosperity, and If we don’t shrink government and get the deficit under control, none of the other issues really matter. And I lean heavily on the libertarian side of the spectrum. But even given that, there’s just too much weirdness (what Kevin Williamson called “his Ronness”) about the rest of Paul’s policies: the newsletters, the footsie with racism, the conspiracy theories, the weirdness about gays and wishing Israel didn’t exist, the running against Reagan. Being just one of 435 House members was a great place for Paul to be, since he could bring up conservative and Libertarian issues without any chance that his wackier ideas would ever end up in legislation, but the Presidency is a different kettle of fish. Plus there’s the problem of his electability, or rather lack thereof. With all his diverse baggage, I believe that Paul is the GOP candidate Obama would have the best chance of defeating. Ignore all the hard-left liberals talking up Paul as a better choice than Obama; it’s just a smokescreen that would evaporate at the first excuse to jump back on the Obama bandwagon. William F. Buckley always said conservative should support the right-most viable candidate. I don’t think Paul is a viable candidate.
  • Michelle Bachmann’s star has faded even more than Perry’s, and she doesn’t have Perry’s executive experience or record on job creation. The fact she’s neither dumb nor crazy doesn’t mean the MSM won’t pull the Full Sarah Palin Treatment on her (Andrew Sullivan womb-diving optional) were she to get the nod.
  • Rick Santorum: Too little, too late, he lost his last election, and his strengths don’t lie in the economy and job creation.
  • Jon Huntsman: Which part of “Republican” was unclear?

    • By process of elimination, that leaves Perry. As I said before, Perry isn’t perfect, but he has a record on holding the line on government spending and enabling job creation that puts Romney to shame. One again, let’s go to the charts that the indispensable Will Franklin of Willisms has provided on Texas job creation:

    And the case for Perry over Romney (again thanks to WILLisms) is even more stark:

    More on the Texas job success story here.

    While I have criticized Perry’s campaign budget proposals for being too timid, Perry insisted on balancing the Texas budget without tax hikes. I assure you that California would love to have Texas’ budget. Indeed, adjusted for inflation, population growth, and federally-mandated spending, the Texas state budget has actually gone down under Perry. His guiding principle has been “don’t spend all the money,” and it’s one that Washington desperately needs.

    One final, very big reason to support Perry: He can win. Perry’s never lost a race, because he’s a tough and tenacious campaigner who’s not afraid to hit his opponents hard. Everyone thought Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to cream Perry in the 2010 governor’s race, and he beat her like a rented mule.

    Or maybe a rented donkey.

    In the general election against Bill White, he ran an ad featuring a police widow talking about how her husband had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city.”

    Even professional MSM Perry hater Paul Burka says that Perry is a hard man. “He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved.” Perry will have absolutely no fear of taking the fight to Obama and going negative early and often, and he won’t let political correctness cow him into treating Obama with kid gloves.

    Will the media savage Rick Perry for his flubs? Of course they will. But, as Ace noted, they’ll always find a way to crucify any Republican candidate to make Obama look better. They’ll use the same “he’s an idiot” line of attack they used on Reagan and Bush43…and you saw how far that got them.

    If you’re still undecided on Perry, this video should at least give you a more rounded picture of him:

    For those who think Perry is already out of the race, remember that at this point in 2004, the consensus was that Howard Dean was going to be the nominee. There’s a reason Americans actually get to vote, and they frequently prove the pundits wrong.

    One final reason to vote for Perry: he’s a pretty good shot.

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    Posted in Budget, Elections, Guns, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Dave Barry Brings The Funny

    Monday, January 2nd, 2012

    With his annual year in review. This year’s theme (ever so appropriate for the Obama Administration): “The Festival of Sleaze.” Some highlights:

  • “The month’s biggest story is a tragedy in Tucson, where a man opens fire on a meet-and-greet being held by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The accused shooter turns out to be a mentally unstable loner with a history of drug use; there is no evidence that his actions had anything to do with uncivil political rhetoric. So naturally the blame for the tragedy is immediately placed on: uncivil political rhetoric.
  • “In Europe, the economic crisis continues to worsen, especially in Greece, which has been operating under a financial model in which the government spends approximately $150 billion a year while taking in revenue totaling $336.50 from the lone Greek taxpayer, an Athens businessman who plans to retire in April. Greece has been making up the shortfall by charging everything to a MasterCard account that the Greek government applied for — in what some critics consider a questionable financial practice — using the name ‘Germany.'”
  • “The European economic crisis worsens still further as Moody’s downgrades its credit rating for Spain following the discovery that the Spanish government, having run completely out of money, secretly sold the Pyrenees to China and is now separated from France only by traffic cones.”
  • “A major crisis is barely avoided when Congress, after frantic negotiations, reaches a last-minute agreement on the federal budget, thereby averting a government shutdown that would have had a devastating effect on the ability of Congress to continue spending insanely more money than it actually has.”
  • “Things are even worse in Europe, where Moody’s announces that it has officially downgraded Greece’s credit rating from ‘poor’ to ‘rat mucus’ following the discovery that the Acropolis has been repossessed.”
  • “May: the big story takes place in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden, enjoying a quiet evening chilling in his compound with his various wives and children and porn stash, receives an unexpected drop-in visit from a team of Navy SEALs. After due consideration of bin Laden’s legal rights, the SEALs convert him into Purina brand Shark Chow; he is then laid to rest in a solemn ceremony concluding upon impact with the Indian Ocean at a terminal velocity of 125 miles per hour. While Americans celebrate, the prime minister of Pakistan declares that his nation (a) is very upset about the raid and (b) had no earthly idea that the world’s most wanted terrorist had been living in a major Pakistani city in a large high-walled compound with a mailbox that said BIN LADEN.”
  • “August: Standard & Poor’s makes good on its threat to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, noting that the federal government, in making fiscal decisions, is exhibiting ‘the IQ of a turnip.’ Meanwhile Wall Street becomes increasingly jittery as investors react to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Bernanke’s surprise announcement that his personal retirement portfolio consists entirely of assault rifles.”
  • “President Obama returns from his Martha’s Vineyard getaway refreshed and ready to tackle the job he was elected by the American people to do: seek reelection. Focusing on unemployment, the president delivers a nationally televised address laying out his plan for creating jobs, which consists of traveling around the nation tirelessly delivering job-creation addresses until it’s time for another presidential getaway.”
  • “Mitt Romney unexpectedly exhibits a lifelike facial expression but is quickly subdued by his advisers.”
  • “An International Monetary Fund audit of the 27-nation European Union reveals that 11 of the nations are missing…Meanwhile in Greece, thousands of rioters take to the streets of Athens to protest a tough new government austerity program that would sharply reduce the per diem rioter allowance.”
  • “Attorney General Eric Holder announces that the FBI has uncovered a plot by Iran to commit acts of terror in the United States, including assassinating the Saudi ambassador, bombing the Israeli Embassy, and—most chillingly—providing funding for traveling productions of ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.'”

    • Not that I need to tell you, but read the whole thing.

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    Posted in Budget, Foreign Policy, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for Friday, November 11, 2011 (11/11/11)

    Friday, November 11th, 2011

    I hope you’re celebrating both Veterans Day and Nigel Tufnel Day (11/11/11) today. A few bits of news:

  • Willisms debunks a lot of false claims about Texas jobs.
  • He also notes that Texas leads the nation in exports.
  • Care for a disabled child in Michigan? The SEIU can deduct union dues from your social security check. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • I’ve not been keeping up with the situation in Killeen, but evidently City Council members voted to give the City Manager a $750,000 buyout, then refused to justify their actions to the taxpayers. The result? All five remaining City Council members were successfully recalled. Note to politicians across the state: Texas is not California. Try to get away with this sort of self-dealing here and we will boot your ass out of office. (Hat tip: Blue Dot Blues.)
  • Mexican cartel gunmen crossed into the small Texas town of Escobares in the Rio Grande Valley.
  • Speaking of cartel violence, the Mexican government evidently has the La Familia Michoacana drug gang on the ropes. La Familia was previously allied with the Gulf Cartel, but more recently worked with the Zeta cartel. I’d previously mentioned La Familia (and their activity in Austin) here.
  • Obama to tax Christmas trees in order to pay for a board to promote Christmas trees.
  • Democrats on the “SuperCommittee” propose…wait for it…wait for it…spending more money! Remember, any time a congressional Democrat says they want to cut spending, they’re lying. (If a Republican says they want to cut spending, there’s at least a possibility that they’re telling the truth.)
  • David Brooks praises Mitt Romney as “smart” and “sophisticated.” Yeah, like conservatives needed another reason to vote against Romney…
  • By contrast, George Will says that in Romney “Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis.” (What’s the difference between David Brooks and George Will? One is a well-dressed, articulate, sophisticated, respected conservative columnist, and the other is David Brooks.)
  • Related.
  • Search and Rescue trailer stolen from NW Austin. Contact your local police if you spot the trailer shown in the picture.
  • I already mentioned this yesterday, but here’s the video of Sen. John Cornyn laying the smackdown on Eric Holder as to the difference between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious.

    • I’ll try to do a Greek/Euro debt update just as soon as I figure out just what the hell Europe is actually doing…

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas, unions | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for September 27, 1011.

    Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
  • Texas’ economy under Perry kicks the ass of Massachusetts under Romney.
  • I was previously unaware of the Texanomics blog, but the blogger there (curiously anonymous; there’s nothing in the About Me page) is giving WILLisms a run for his money in charting the superiority of Texas over the other 49 states (or, if you’re Barack Obama, the other 56 states, including Wyomorado).
  • Thanks to Obama’s magic touch, 2012 is actually shaping up to be worse for Democrats than 2010.
  • Jonah Goldberg says that Obama has woken the bear of America’s natural conservative tendencies.
  • The Daily Caller interviews Michael Totten about his new book, In the Wake of the Surge. I’m reading his previous book on Lebanon, The Road to Fatima Gate intermittently (mixed up with the usual science fiction), and enjoying it a great deal.
  • Speaking of books, I suppose I should mention that Adam Winkler’s Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America is now out. Previous coverage of an excerpt from that book can be found here.
  • Well, here’s some cheerful news: “Moldovan authorities believe that 2.2 pounds of weapon-usable uranium is held by traffickers who have in the past sought to sell the material to North African buyer.” (Hat tip: Bruce Sterling’s Twitter feed.)
  • The open-minded liberals at the University of Wisconsin-Stout are threatening a professor because his poster quoted a line from Firefly. (Hat tip: Neil Gaiman’s Twitter feed.)

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Guns, Texas | No Comments »

    Roundup of Reactions to Rick Perry’s Announcement

    Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
  • Jonathan McClellan at The Right Side of Austin has the complete text of Perry’s press release, text message, and tweet.
  • Texas Iconoclast: “My early guess is that Perry will breeze through the GOP Primary with little difficulty and will continue to hone his anti-Obama message across the country…Perry is, by far, the strongest candidate with the strongest conservative record. Romney vs. Perry is all that’s left and I expect Romney’s support to start melting away.”
  • Andrew Klaven thought Perry’s speech rocked.
  • William Murchison: “Rick Perry loves business and the spirit of enterprise even more than Barack Obama seems to look down his nose at same….As a New York Times subscriber of many years’ standing, I can tell you Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni, and the squinty fanatics of Andrew Rosenthal’s editorial page will come unglued at the idea of Rick Perry approaching unto the seat of Barack Obama. Likewise the Eastern bloggers — the Jacob Weisbergs, the Andrew Sullivans, and so on. Why do the nations so furiously rage together when a Texan comes in view? They just do.”
  • Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry over at NRO say that Perry will be a formidable candidate, but list five obstalces he will have to overcome. I don’t necessarily agree with their analysis (such as the necessity of winning Iowa).
  • Roger Simon: “Rick Perry only just announced his presidential run Saturday, but out here in the blue-blue City of Angels I am already detecting severe signs of PDS — Perry Derangement Syndrome.”
  • Michael Walsh at The New York Post says that it’s now a two man race between Perry and Romney.
  • Paul A. Rahe at Ricochet thinks Perry needs to tailor his audience more to national (as opposed to Texas) audience.
  • How the calendar stacks up for a Perry/Romney battle.
  • Last, and very possibly least, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs insinuates that Perry is a secret jihadi sympathizer, or at the very least soft on jihad. To call it weak tea would be to suggest that there’s any tea at all; instead, it appears Geller has taken a picture of a tea bag, and then steeped the picture.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Rick Perry to Announce Presidential Campaign Saturday in South Carolina

    Monday, August 8th, 2011

    So says Politico.

    I think Perry will jump in, will win the primary, and will beat Obama, primarily because I think he’s sharp enough and mean enough to win. Perry looks as good as Romney, has as much Tea Party support as Bachmann, and has record as Governor that puts both in the shade. He dismantled Kay Baily Hutchison in the 2010 Governor’s race, and then mopped the floor with Bill White. Also, I think there’s a better than 50% chance that Sarah Palin with endorse his candidacy.

    And of course, Perry’s record on jobs and budgets blows Obama’s away. It’s like the difference between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf.

    Hopefully more on Perry later in the week.

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    Posted in Budget, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Newt’s Staff Quitting En Masse=Rick Perry Jumping Into the Presidential Race?

    Thursday, June 9th, 2011

    So Jim Geraghty suggests over at The Campaign Spot. He’s not the only one to to do so.

    This would seem to address Texas Iconoclast’s first point about why Perry won’t run.

    Make no mistake: If Perry jumps in, he will be a very formidable foe. Kay Baily Hutchison was supposed to beat him in the Governor’s race and he dismantled her. Texas has shown the type of economic growth the rest of the Obama-stricken nation can only envy. Though he has real baggage (the Trans-Texas Corridor, toll roads, and the Gardasil blunder all come to mind), but nothing compared to Romneycare or Obama’s disastrous handling of the economy.

    Perry has the name-recognition, the executive experience, the fundraising prowess, and the instinct for the jugular necessary to win both the primary and the election. Unless Sarah Palin or Chris Christie jumps in, no one else has the national stature Perry has.

    And as for the possibility of any lingering Bush fatigue, well, Bush is starting to look pretty good in retrospect, isn’t he? Bush’s worst economic month in office still beats Obama’s best.

    If he gets in, I like Perry’s odds better than Romney’s. Or Obama’s.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »

    Faster, Pussycat! Pander! Pander!

    Friday, May 27th, 2011

    Mitt Romney comes out in favor of ethanol subsidies. “I support the subsidy of ethanol.”

    Well, thanks for that. Ideological clarity is always useful: Tim Pawlenty has political courage, Mitt Romney doesn’t. Good to know.

    For as long as he’s been mentioned as a serious presidential candidate (say, about 2007), I’ve always harbored a vague dislike of Romney for reasons that were hard to articulate, and which had nothing to do with his Mormonism. Just looking at him made me think he was a smug, dishonest creep, no matter how much the good folks at National Review gushed over him. If you had asked me to explain why I disliked him I would have had to admit that it was an entirely irrational, gut-level reaction. (The vast majority of liberals have the same gut-level, irrational hatred of Sarah Palin, but they just won’t admit it’s irrational.)

    But the more I hear from Romney, the more I think that my gut-level reaction was right, that Romney is an empty suit that doesn’t believe in anything except his own awesomeness. If Romney got elected, I bet within a year we’d be getting New York Times editorials praising him for how much he’s “grown” (i.e., abandoned conservative positions).

    Romney was never going to be my choice for the GOP nod, but his latest pander has finally dropped him to dead last among the serious contenders in my book, even below New Gingrich, Ron Paul and Herman Cain. At least with Ron Paul, I have some idea of where he stands. Romney has the ideological consistency of store-brand guacamole.

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    Posted in Budget, Elections, Republicans | 1 Comment »

    Two Cheers for Tim Pawlenty

    Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

    Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota Governor and 2012 GOP Presidential contender, came out in favor of ending ethanol subsidies. In Iowa, no less.

    Good for him. This is good governance and good politics.

    Ethanol subsidies are among the most egregious examples of federal agribusiness pork, stealing money from taxpayers to give to Fortune 500 companies, not to mention driving up the price of food for poor people. Given the huge size of the Obama deficits, this fiscally and morally irresponsible subsidy is a great place to start trimming.

    However, like all agribusiness subsidies, ethanol is extraordinarily popular among agriculture state politicians of both parties. Given how early the Iowa Caucuses fall in the Presidential election cycle, it’s long been thought that opposing ethanol (or any other agribusiness subsidies) was political suicide for a Presidential aspirant, which is why which is why normally free market Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have fallen all over themselves to pimp for subsidies to the likes of ADM.

    But that was before Obama transformed the annual federal budget deficit from hundred of billions to trillions of dollars, and before the Tea Party flexed their muscles in the 2010 election. At long last reality may be intruding on this particular sacred subsidy cow. Simply put: If we can’t cut agribusiness subsidies, then there’s almost nothing we can cut, we’re heading toward a debt crises of horrifying proportions, and the future of the United States of America will look an awful lot like Greece’s present.

    The political and structural barriers to real budget reform are daunting, so it’s going to require serious political courage (and Republicans in charge of the House, Senate and White House) to actually address. So far serious courage (or even courageous seriousness) have been in short supply in the 2012 Presidential race. Certainly Obama has none when it comes to the deficit; he either thinks he can come right up to the edge of the falls before jumping off the boat, or refuses to believe that the falls even exist. The Republican field has been somewhat better, but (as Gingirch’s Iowa pander exemplifies) not nearly enough.

    Before his announcement, I must admit that I was only vaguely familiar with Pawlenty. His name showed up in National Review from time to time, but I wasn’t nearly as familiar with his work as governor as I was with, say, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels or Sarah Palin (yes, many of us were familiar with her before McCain tapped her as his running mate). As a 2012 GOP hopefully, Pawlenty was someone I considered way back in the pack, ahead of people like Herman Cain (the Presidency of the United States of America should not be an entry-level job) and Buddy Roemer (not switching to the Republican Party until 1991 indicates that he’s something of a slow learner), but behind almost everyone else.

    Denouncing ethanol subsidies in Iowa displays precisely the sort of political courage the next President is going to need. For me, that moves Pawlenty out of the back of the pack and into the front ranks. He’s now in the conversation as a serious possibility, which he wasn’t really before. So two cheers for Tim Pawlenty.

    Why not three cheers? Because he didn’t call for the complete elimination of all agribusiness subsidies…

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    Posted in Budget, Elections, Republicans | 1 Comment »

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