Rick Perry has entered the 2012 Republican Presidential Race with all the subtly of a person who shows up unfashionably late and a bit drunk to your dinner party, all braggadocio and bad manners. You get the impression that he only joined the fray so those cute little women-folk from Minnesota and Alaska wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of hauling all that teabag bullshit all over America. Hell, he looks like the Marlboro Man after a year on human growth hormones. Thank God he loves his hair so much or we'd have another cowboy hat in the ring. The Texas Governor is running for President because...wait for it... God told him to. What with God nudging candidates in and out of the contest for GOP candidate(Bachmann in, Huckabee out), no wonder He took his eye off the ball and we ended up with Hurricane Irene.
Perry got to be Governor of Texas when George W. Bush got to be President. A more nuanced example of reverse evolution you will never see. Hardly a testimonial for intelligent design. On the MENSA meter, Perry makes George W. Bush look like Bertrand Russell. Rick Perry's reputation in Texas is that of a slow-witted, scam artist who never saw a special interest he couldn't tap for a contribution. His business card says "Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, "quid pro quo". The only difference between Perry and Huey Long is the cost of his hair stylist.
Governor Perry arrives on the national scene with just the right blend of tea and sympathy. Naturally, he hates our current President. Perry thinks the last thing Barack Obama got right was the ""...so help me God" part of his inauguration address. He hates TARP, hates stimulus, hates healthcare, hates raising the debt ceiling and really hates Obama's choice of mustard at Ray's Hellburger. He touts the growth of jobs in Texas forgetting the fact that all, and I mean all, of the new jobs in Texas are either minimum wage or public sector. There are about four hundred military bases in The Lone Star State. Counting the Long Horns football team almost everyone in Texas is wearing a uniform. The Governor who made headlines in 2010 by suggesting that Texas might declare for independence from the mother country is only too happy to take all the federal gravy he can get.
Perry professes to run a fiscally conservative ship in Texas yet the State is currently running a $27 billion deficit. To close the gap, Perry has slashed $4 billion from the K-12 education budget. Good choice! The state already ranks at the bottom among the state residents with a high school diploma. (That includes 61% of the states basketball players.) That gives them a world education ranking near Somalia and just ahead of Azerbaijan. If Texas were a country, Sally Struthers would be filming aid commercials from Abilene.
Armed with the confidence that fear sells (hey, it worked for Glenn Beck) Perry has attempted to demonize all things federal. Hoping to garner the survivalist vote Ricky has attacked Ben Bernanke (a well-known tool of Marxism) and labeled social security a Ponzi scheme. Apparently Old Rick hasn't been checking the birth certificates of the teabaggers lately. Most of them are only able to attend rallies thanks to senior discounts. Having never actually seen or used public transportation, Perry is unfamiliar with the concept of the third rail.
Perry has already been forced to respond to ethical questions in Texas. Those issues will only intensify as the national press begins to dig. After all, you know how mean-spirited the liberal media can be. According to the New York Times, Perry received $17 million in campaign donations from more than 900 of Texas state appointees and their spouses. Who says Texans don't know how to return a favor? If Perry can dream up 25,400 additional government jobs at $19,000 per contributor, he'll have the 1/2 billion needed to run for President. Think of how rosy the unemployment picture in Texas will be then.
What Governor Perry forgets is that low state taxes and no state income tax sound great but his gains come at the expense of other states. If you remove the safety net that is minimum wage, OSHA, EPA and NLRB from the national equation, every state suffers. People can no longer trust the produce they eat or the water they drink. Low wage jobs boost employment rates but create more poverty and the need for more assistance. No healthcare drives people to emergency rooms for care. ENRON, Bear Stearns and AIG have amply demonstrated what unregulated capitalism can produce. The "low taxes will produce more jobs" canard has been disproved time and time again. Low taxes produce corporate profits...period. If that is Governor Perry's idea of fresh thinking, he really is dumber than George W. Bush.
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