And supposedly endorsing Gingrich. Poor Mitt.
Tonight’s debate will be popcorn worthy. I can’t wait!
Tag Archives: Rick Perry
How $hewd is Rick Perry?
How did Rick Perry get rich? No, he didn’t buy into a major league baseball team and resell his portion for mega-dollars. The FrumForum explains one property deal that is like many of his property deals:
Look at this transaction from the 2000s. A Texas real estate developer sells land to a Texas state senator – the senator who happened to represent the development’s district. The state senator sold the land to Gov. Perry. Gov. Perry then sold then land – back to the real estate developer’s business partner. Perry scored a profit of $823,000. Tidy. And how remarkable that Perry and his state senator friend could see a value proposition that the two professional real estate developers overlooked.
So it goes through investments in stock, load, and energy properties. Perry just kept seeing things that other people apparently didn’t.
Is he that shrewd? Or is he that lucky? Or could it be something else?
How Dumb is Rick Perry?
BuzzFeed put a list together which starts out with, “He’s like Bush only without the brains.” The list goes on, but as one Texas insider said, “The political graveyard in Texas is buried full of people who have underestimated Rick Perry.” You can also read more about Perry’s stubbornness at Politico.
If “Balls” Means Evil Then Yes
Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man — Cameron Todd Willingham — and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”
Rick Perry is the latest GOP savior and it’s voters like the one above who will be picking the GOP nominee. Maybe the economy is so bad that people won’t care about Perry’s secessionist dabbling, his drive to execute an innocent man (remember he dissolved the arson investigation board that was about to exonerate Willingham) or his crazy preachers. It just looks like the only people who can win the GOP nomination can’t win a general election.
God’s Candidate
This scares the crap out of me:
On this day, the Lord’s messengers arrived in the form of two Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Perry in the governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long both oversee small congregations, but they are more than just pastors. They consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the same gifts as Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles.
The pastors told Perry of God’s grand plan for Texas. A chain of powerful prophecies had proclaimed that Texas was “The Prophet State,” anointed by God to lead the United States into revival and Godly government. And the governor would have a special role.
The day before the meeting, Schlueter had received a prophetic message from Chuck Pierce, an influential prophet from Denton, Texas. God had apparently commanded Schlueter—through Pierce—to “pray by lifting the hand of the one I show you that is in the place of civil rule.”
Gov. Perry, it seemed.
Schlueter had prayed before his congregation: “Lord Jesus I bring to you today Gov. Perry. … I am just bringing you his hand and I pray Lord that he will grasp ahold of it. For if he does you will use him mightily.”
I thought God was asking Michele Bachmann to run? Speaking of Michele Bachmann…
Slate’s Dave Weigel has reported an audio recording of Bachmann praying for the notoriously anti-gay ministry You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, run by the radical preacher Bradlee Dean. Bachmann offered the prayer in 2006 (though the recording was uploaded in 2008). In it, Bachmann predicts, “We are in the last days,” and says, “The harvest is at hand” — a Biblical allusion to the Rapture when some believe God will take saved Christians from the earth and leave the non-believers to face several years of torment and tribulation before the second coming of Christ:
BACHMANN: Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are a Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands. And we give them to you…The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold. Than bringing new life into the
kingdom…You have weeded that garden. The harvest is at hand.
Rumor is that today PPP Polls will publish a poll showing Michele Bachmann in front of the GOP pack, including Romney (by one point). Supposedly undeclared candidate Perry is in double digits in this poll as well. This could be good news for Romney since Bachmann and Perry are competing for the same voters. Also, according to PPP, Pawlenty is in such dismal shape in the poll (8th place), they’re dropping him from the national polling.
Another Poll from The Fix
As we all know, Gov. Jack Markell won the Fix’s Most Underrated Governor poll last week. This week, The Fix is asking who the nation’s most overrated governor is. The choices are Ed Rendell (D-Pa.), Charlie Crist (R-Fla.), Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.), Martin O’Malley (D-Md.), Rick Perry (R-Texas) and Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.).
I’ve already put in my vote for Perry, how about you?
Remember vote early and vote often.
Fiscal Conservative Hypocrisy Watch
Do words have meaning to the GOP anymore?
Famous Appalachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford ran for Congress and for governor of South Carolina as a penny-pinching fiscal conservative. Guess who’s a big hypocrite? Politico analyzed Sanford’s travel records:
The records detail more than $468,000 worth of state-funded travel for Sanford and show that he routinely billed taxpayers for high-end airline seats, racking up more than $44,000 on business- and first-class tickets. He often stayed in pricey hotels that far exceeded the rates he imposed on other state employees.
…
While running for governor in 2002, Sanford zeroed in on travel spending, criticizing Democratic incumbent Gov. Jim Hodges for “lavish spending” on airfare and hotel rooms.
“If I become your governor,” he asserted in a radio ad, “I’ll fix that problem in Columbia.”
Indeed, in his first year as South Carolina’s chief executive, Sanford moved quickly to implement his campaign promise by urging state employees to sleep two to a hotel room while traveling on state business.
Later, he called out an unnamed state employee for staying in a New York hotel for $269 per night — which he pointed out at the time was $61 above the federal rate — and a state consultant for billing the state $375 a night for a three-night stay in a Phoenix hotel to attend a conference.
BTW, Sanford is on vacation again, this time with his wife. How much time does Sanford spend on vacation anyway?
Remember how Texas governor Rick Perry made a big deal about not accepting the oppressive government stimulus money, and even flirted with secessionist talk? Guess who’s coming around looking for money?
Perry, probably thinking more about his upcoming Republican gubernatorial primary than effective government, made a very foolish call. In the Spring, he didn’t want $555 million in stimulus funds that would have simply been a grant, which the state wouldn’t have to pay back. Now, Perry may ask the federal government for a loan that could reach $650 million, which Texas will have to pay back.
So, the stimulus follies have taken down 3 governors so far: Palin (resigned), Sanford and now probably Perry. Perry’s big advantage over Kay Bailey Hutchison was his support from the far right. How are they going to feel now that Perry is begging the federal government for money?