Seven ways Rick Perry wants to change the Constitution

That's unfair. George W. Bush was actually a pretty decent Governor. He was in the more traditional mode in that most of the heavy lifting was done by the Lt. Governor, Bob Bullock. To be fair to Bush, he did the things he did do well, and didn't screw up the things that he could have screwed up. Perry, on the other hand, has been in office a decade now, long enough to have appointed all the members of countless commissions, boards of agencies, agency heads, many that have staggered terms to prevent undue influence by what has traditionally been a one or two term Texas Governor. This has given Perry far more influence than he is meant to have, traditionally, under the Texas constitution. He's also had a weak Lt. Governor, a man intimidated by Perry and willing to bend over even when he disagrees with him. So he's managed to mismanage the state into an absolute mess.

An honest comparison of the two makes Perry look like an idiot. I'm astonished that fans of George Bush like Perry at all. My problem with Bush is that he became the living embodiment of the Peter Principal. He rose too high. And those facts, folks, makes basso a hypocrite, if anyone wasn't sure.

 

I wish we had a Bob Bullock type politician running the senate today.

 

Karl Rove doesn't like Perry?

Remember Rove was a big part of the W administration?

Yeah, this makes me like Perry more.

 

Tom Tomorrow is pretty darn good even if I don't always agree with him.

 

Perry's obsession with states' rights is very strange to me. He realizes he's running for president, not governor, right?

 

How is running for president incompatible with a belief in states' rights?

As President he would be in a position to divest power back to the states.

 

Rick Perry is such a total doucher that I would gladly move back to California tomorrow and live in the La Brea tar pits than be in the presence of such inbred evil for 12 more seconds.

Hey Richard... Separation of Church and State. Go push your Bibles down somebody else's throat you gold-digging parasite of the common folk that worked your way to the top on the backs of Mongolian slave children and Phnom Phen lactation.

If Rick Perry were to be elected president of the United States I will be on the next boat out of America because he will all but surely bankrupt the entire nation ten times quicker than Reagan and W did by declaring a Corinthian jihad upon the heads of some random peasants sitting on black gold.

**** Rick Perry and the horse he rode in on.

 

methinks Ricky boy is going to be like Greenspan, if he ever gets the chance---"I fought so hard for deregulation, but then, I realized that as Fed chairman, I made my future self and my successors impotent when s*** hit the fan."

NOW, that said, does anyone else find it puzzling that Perry is an adamant advocate of federal power when it comes to the two issues he cannot seem to let states determine---gay rights and abortion? "WE MUST USE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STOP MEN KISSING." Seriously, the guy seems to acknowledge that the federal government is a powerful force to correct injustices committed through inconsistencies among state laws, and that to paraphrase a favorite West Wing quote of mine "national problems have national solutions." Except his national problem is stopping Elton John from marrying. He'll leave everything out to the states including taxation, but the gays burn his eyes, and I don't think he quite grasps the concept of Roe v Wade being a "fight long lost".

but yeah, it all makes sense now, he'll try to overturn established court rulings through Congress eventually.

The Rick Perry judicial originality train! Where justices are wrong wrong wrong, because the founders hated gays, and abortionists.

 

What injustices are you referring to?


I would agree marriage/abortion amendments are inconsistent with his professed love of federalism (the justification for the marriage amendment is that some judge will want to go down in the history books and will compel Texas and all other states to recognize marriages in New York).

But if you think a politician being inconsistent on some issues is going to be enough for Obama to win...

Every politician has inconsistencies in their views/actions. Nobody is going to give a crap about gays/abortion/evolution in 2012. They want a freaking job, and Perry's record in that regard, whether you think it's warranted or not, will be impossible to refute politically.

 

Based on that article, Rick Perry essentially wants to be under a new Articles of Confederation again. Also, if removing the federal income tax and and public voting of senators due to it "being populist" and thereby wrong, then how do you justify adding judicial term limits and adding a "another check" on them from Congress? Aren't those also populist actions?

 

Nobody is going to give a crap about gays/abortion except for women and gays, and last I checked, that was about 51% of the population.

Nobody cares about the issue NOW...but you can be sure that if Perry tries to bring it out, or someone corners him on it, it will create a firestorm.

As for your reference to evolution and the separation of church/state, I think that's where 70% of Americans start worrying, and the other 30% are the ones who still question dinosaurs, if you catch my drift.

 

I suppose this is as good a place to post this[/url as any.

 

WE LEARNED OUR LESSONS. NO MORE REPUBLICANS FROM TEXAS.

 

That seems to me to be a weak defense. Rhetoric, especially if emanating from the highest office in the land, is divisive and can have serious consequences in shaping the political landscape.

 

Do you have a problem with this? And yet you support Keynesian economics?

 

I am not sure that is a defense of Perry but more how his rhetoric doesn't match his actions. Just to add to that I recall the same week that he was talking about secession he was also asking for federal help to protect the border. Perry is a hypocrite when it comes to Federalism and while most politicians are hypocrites to varying degrees Perry seems particularly bold faced about it.

 

The article to me read like a defense -- it was contrasting his record with what "his critics" say about him.

 

well its saying his rhetoric is over the top and stupid, but he's a hypocrite for not following up and he's more moderate. so i'm not sure if that is a defense or not

 

The article never used the word hypocrite when discussing how his record doesn't match the rhetoric. The impression I get is that we shouldn't be too concerned about the rhetoric because he's actually a moderate.

 

My problem with the argument in the article is that even if he had certain "moderate" policies in the past (partly because there are enough, for example, Latino voters in Texas to force him to do so), there is a good chance that his policies as the president will not be so. This is because he is going to rely on the Tea Party crowd to get elected and will be indebted to and must kowtow to their preferences. If Perry was elected, he will also have to kowtow to a Tea Party Congress.