Having covered Rick Santorum in Iowa, and having met his supporters, I know that he’s nowhere near dropping out. As he told me after our interview Saturday in Ames, they’ve run their entire campaign so far on about $600,000 in contributions and, according to Santorum’s staff, their online donations have increased since last Thursday’s debate.
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Finishing fourth in the Ames Straw Poll with 1,657 votes, Santorum spent a lot less per vote than did Bachmann, whose ads were all over Iowa TV in the two weeks leading up to the straw poll, while Santorum wasn’t advertising at all. Steve Ertelt of LifeNews.com says“with the Republican presidential race partly becoming an expectations game, Santorum gets a boost by performing much better than expected.”
I like Rick Santorum. In fact, and he’s one of my favorites in the race.He’s thoughtful, intelligent, well spoken, deeply conservative, and has done extremely well in all of the debates. As a fellow Catholic I appreciate the fact that he has “walked the walk” in his personal life, and fought for conservative, pro-life principles in his public life. But while his cultural conservatism is a plus for me, I understand it also turns many people off, and has in fact has inspired some of the most vile and profane critique ever witnessed in public discourse. It’s unfortunate because he’s really a top notch candidate.
What’s sad and ironic, is Obama’s response drew more attention to his lack of military service, and his thin skinned prickliness, than Perry’s supposed disrespect, so Obama”s the one who should watch what he says.
He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry’s edict.
Gardasil’s wear-off time and long-term side effects have yet to be determined. “Serious questions” remain about its “overall effectiveness,” according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even the chair of the federal panel that recommended Gardasil for children opposes mandating it as a condition of school enrollment. Young girls and boys are simply not at an increased risk of contracting HPV in the classroom the way they are at risk of contracting measles or other school-age communicable diseases.
Perry defenders pointed to a bogus “opt-out” provision in his mandate “to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children’s health care.” But requiring parents to seek the government’s permission to keep an untested drug out of their kids’ veins is a plain usurpation of their authority. Translation: Ask your bureaucratic overlord to determine if a Gardasil waiver is right for you.
Libertarians and social conservatives alike slammed Perry’s reckless disregard for parental rights and individual liberty. The Republican-dominated legislature also balked. In May 2007, both chambers passed bills overturning the governor’s unilaterally imposed health order.
Now, Perry is lamely trying to excuse this huge blotch on his record by saying that “he didn’t do his research well enough”:
And that’s just one of many examples of Perry’s crony capitalism. Left Coast Rebellists a few more:
The file on Perry’s abuses of power, insider deals with cronies and tax and spend policies is thick, but for a start here are what Texas RLC members voted as the top five Perry scandals which GOP primary voters need to know more about:
1.Business Slush Funds:Perry made heavy use of business incentive “slush funds” which used taxpayer dollars to subsidize selected businesses, many of them run by his major campaign contributors. Just two of these funds, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Growth fund, spent over $700 million to subsidize businesses to move to Texas or expand operations in Texas, with little evidence that these handouts of taxpayer money produced job or revenue growth anywhere near sufficient to justify the expense. In fact, many of these businesses eventually downsized or relocated long before they had earned the money Perry gave them, or even went bankrupt with $25 million fund dollars like Countrywide Financial.
Perry has never met a toll road project he wasn’t willing to seize huge amounts of private land for and then give the exclusive management contracts to foreign corporations. Perry’s time in office has set records for eminent domain land seizures – over a million acres have been seized. His toll road projects have confiscated family farms and torn communities apart. Toll roads have been used as a massive off-the-books tax program, taking money from Texas drivers and feeding it to foreign financial interests and management groups which lobbied the governor for special deals which produce much higher tolls and higher profits than are typical in other states.
In 2007 Perry issued an executive order which would have forcibly vaccinated every girl in Texas entering the sixth grade with Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for Human Papilloma Virus. This massive violation of the privacy rights of Texas teenagers and their parents would have come at a cost of $360 in taxpayer money per shot. It would have been a huge windfall for Merck, which had paid Perry’s former Chief of Staff $250,000 to lobby the governor and legislature to promote the forced vaccination program.
Knowing that it would be impossible to pass an income tax against popular opposition in Texas, Perry promoted the idea of a special business tax called the “Franchise Tax” which taxes businesses at different arbitrary rates set by the government. This tax expands business taxes to types of businesses which are not taxed in most states and in many cases taxes small businesses more than large corporations they compete with. For example it taxes small car repair shops at double the rate it taxes large dealerships for car repairs. It’s a small business and job killer.
When Rep. David Simpson led the Texas legislature towards passage of an enormously popular bill (HB1938) to hold the TSA accountable for intrusive searches of airline passengers, Perry played a key role in making sure that the bill was not passed. When the TSA and the Justice Department began pressuring him, although Perry had promised to submit the bill to the special legislative session, he delayed submitting the bill until it was so late in the session that it was virtually impossible to hold the constitutionally mandated votes necessary for passage. That way he could score points with the public for submitting the popular bill while at the same time making sure that it wouldn’t pass. It’s a classic example of Perry’s insincere pandering.
I remember that TX anti-TSA bill,and was pretty excited about it. Ugh. I’ve been waiting for a candidate to come out forcefully against the TSA’s grope and grab policies, and here we have someone, who when he had the power to do something about it, he caved to pressure from Obama’s corrupt TSA and DOJ? Ugh.
And another (former) Republican Governor, who spent her time in office fighting the type of crony capitalism we see coming out of Rick Perry’s Texas, still may enter the race.
P.S.
I’m open to any explanations Perry defenders have on any or all of these examples of what appears to be crony capitalism. In fact I’d like to hear his side of the story.
BARACK OBAMA: You know, Mr. Perry just got into the presidential race. I think that everybody who runs for president, it probably takes them a little bit of time before they start realizing that this isn’t like running for governor or running for senator or running for Congress, and you’ve got to be a little more careful about what you say.
But I’ll cut him some slack. He’s only been at it for a few days now.
Jeez, it’s hard to isolate the most egregious offense, here…
Is it the arrogance?: Deigning to school the inexperienced, political neophyte, Perry on how to run for President…like Perry needs his advice?
The condescension?: “I’ll cut him some slack....” (How big of him).
And then there’s the implicit warning—“He’s only been at it a few days now” ….We’ll give him a few days to get his bearings, then if he starts hitting me where I’m vulnerable (that would be all over – ed), Captain Kick-A$$ takes the gloves off. Obama’s warning to Perry to be “more careful” is self-serving – it’s designed to benefit him by intimidating Perry.
It’s obvious to everyone that Obama’s Midwest jaunt is a campaign bus tour.
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The president should simply refuse to talk about the GOP candidates until next spring. It’s just undignified for him to be attacking this early. And it puts him in the frame of mind where for the next year and two months, he’ll be making decisions based on what his political hacks – and Romney’s and Perry’s – are thinking.
He’d do better politically and for the country if he’d just be president. Responding to every peep out of the Republicans is amateurish self indulgence.
Shouldn’t the President be a little more careful?
The most egregious offense of all? Acting like Rick Perry said anything wrong. He didn’t:
“The men and women in the United States Military want someone who’s worn the uniform” – Perry’s worn the uniform.
Speaking obvious truths is “disrespectful”, how?
Note to the Perry Campaign: Don’t be deterred from speaking the truth. He’s going to come at you with both barrels blazing no matter what you do.
Oh, and btw, get used to being called a racist. Governor Perry, (R-Racist) is going to be a recurring theme for the next 14 months. Get used to it. His surrogates at PMSNBC are already pushing the narrative, and that clumsy oaf, Ed Schmultz is taking a leading role – going to the trouble of doctoring tapes to make Perry sound like he said something he didn’t. There’s going to be so much of this going on in the months ahead, the eventual back-tracks and weaselly statements “of regret”, won’t matter. The narrative will have been created and that’s all they care about.
Poor Obama gets a lot of flack from racist Republicans, especially that Texas “good old boy”, Rick Perry — just for being (half) black.
It’s a flawed strategy for a couple of reasons –
1.) The dim bulbs at MSNBC don’t have the persuasive powers to influence anyone but the dimmest of bulbs who watch them.
2.) The race card is about maxed out. Is this they best they’ve got?
Nice Deb 