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Posts Tagged ‘Rick Perry’

Rick Perry is not the only prominent Republican with a Democratic past

by Mojambo ( 64 Comments › )
Filed under Democratic Party, Elections 2012, Republican Party at July 20th, 2011 - 11:30 am

I am proud that the Republican Party (largely thanks to Ronald Reagan) has been able to bring over so many intelligent people from the Democratic Party. We need to bring disaffected Democrats over (and believe me there are plenty of them out there). As the Democratic Party moved further and further to the Left, and as the Henry Jackson wing of the party started to become extinct, becoming Republican became a natural progression.

by Caroline May

The New York Times caused a bit of a stir last week when the paper rehashed Texas Republican governor and potential presidential candidate Rick Perry’s years, prior to 1989, before he was a Republican.

[…]

The prediction has already proved correct, as Perry’s Republican dissenters are using the fact that the governor once had a “D” next to his name as another reason not to support his candidacy.

Yet as opponents seize on the oft-forgotten truth, the list of successful Republicans who started their political careers as Democrats is practically too long to recite. One of the Republicans’ favorite leaders, Ronald Reagan, started his career as a liberal Democrat, and Reagan and Perry are not alone.

Conservative darling and current presidential candidate Michele Bachmann first campaigned for Jimmy Carter in the 1970s as a Democrat. It was not until law school that she moved to the right.

In addition to Perry, five other Republicans currently in office used to hold office as Democrats: Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, Texas Rep. Ralph Hall, Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, and Louisiana Rep. Rodney Alexander. 

Additionally, New Mexico Republican Gov. Susana Martinez never held office as a Democrat, but prior to 1995 and up until 1988, she was a registered Democrat.

Dozens more have followed the same path that have come and gone including: former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, former Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith, former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, former Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and former Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott.

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Read the rest:

Governors Rick Perry and Nikki Haley: Break the spend-and-borrow cycle. Cut, Cap & Balance

by huckfunn ( 10 Comments › )
Filed under Economy, Elections 2012, Headlines, Politics, Republican Party at July 15th, 2011 - 11:44 am

 

 

Governors Rick Perry and Nikki Haley outlined their Pledge to Cut Cap and Balance the federal budge in an Op-ed piece  in yesterday’s New York Post.

As governors of states whose residents, like all Americans, are desperate for the restoration of fiscal responsibility in Washington, we are proud to have signed the “Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge” amid the debate over once again raising the federal debt ceiling.

We oppose an increase in the federal debt limit unless three common-sense conditions are met: substantial cuts in spending; enforceable spending caps to put the country on a path to a balanced budget; and congressional passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment should include a requirement for a congressional supermajority to approve any increases in taxes.

The pledge reads as follow:

I pledge to urge my Senators and Member of the House of Representatives to oppose any debt limit increase unless all three of the following conditions have been met:

  1. Cut – Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
  2. Cap – Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.
  3. Balance – Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expense.

I hope Boehner and McConnell are paying attention.

Read the whole article here.

Americans still blame Baby Bush for the bad economy

by Phantom Ace ( 13 Comments › )
Filed under Economy, George W. Bush, Headlines, Misery Index, Republican Party, unemployment at July 14th, 2011 - 1:30 pm

Many Conservatives are still in denial about Baby Bush. He has become some martyred saint to some on the Right, hence my name St. George of the Bush. The biggest joke is, Baby Bush was no Conservative. He was a Progressive Rockefeller Republican. Another fact some Conservatives are in denial is the unpopularity St. George of the Bush has with the American public.

Despite being out of office 2 1/2 years a majority of Americans still blameBush for the bad economy. To be fair, Obama’s policies haven’t helped and have caused long term damage. However, the public still has bad taste in its mouth from the Baby Bush years.

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the economy, but by 2-1 they pin the blame on former President George W. Bush rather than Obama, who is now more than 60 percent through his term of office

“Given this public view, it might be reasonable to expect that the president’s re-election campaign will be, as it was in 2008, running against the former president, in addition to the actual GOP nominee,” said Brown. “The key voting bloc, independents, say 49 – 24 percent that Bush is more responsible for the economy than Obama.”

In order to defeat Obama, the GOP nominee must distance themselves from St. George of the Bush. Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann were criticized for taking swipes at Baby Bush. However as the poll shows, this is good strategy. The truth is, Americans don’t like Bush. Just because they have soured on Obama, doesn’t mean they have a fondness for the Bush years.

A Non-Bush Republican would make it difficult for Obama to hang St. George of the Bush around their neck.

Texas execution signals Rick Perry is ready to run for president

by Mojambo ( 206 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Crime, Elections 2012, George W. Bush, Mexico, Republican Party at July 10th, 2011 - 2:50 pm

I love  Rick Perry telling George W. Bush, Barack Obama, the Mexican Government and the United Nations to go pound salt up their keisters. You don’t want to be executed, do not commit murder in Texas.
By the way what  is the latest with the Newt Gingrich campaign? Ha Ha Ha

by Toby Harnden

If you’re looking for a sign that Governor Rick Perry of Texas is about to run for President of the United States then the execution of one Humberto Leal Garcia is probably it.

By all appearances, Perry didn’t give a damn about the opposition of the Obama administration, the United Nations and the Mexican government. Leal was a Mexican citizen – the reason for the furore – and the Texas governor refused even to take a telephone call from the Mexican ambassador as the death chamber was being readied.

Perry declined to issue a 30-day stay of execution after the Supreme Court voted by the slimmest possible margin of 5 to 4 not to spare the condemned man and Leal duly went to meet his maker an hour after the country’s highest court had ruled.

On the face of it, Perry had every reason to give Leal, who had spent 16 years on death row, another month to live. He could have called the bluff of some of his critics and also presented himself as a potential-be commander-in-chief with a view not only beyond Texas but also stretching farther than American shores.

President Barack Obama had argued that executing Leal would endanger American citizens abroad. This was because Leal, an illegal immigrant who entered the US as a toddler, had not been given the opportunity to have access to Mexican consular officials, a right enshrined in the Vienna Convention.

[……]

There is every indication that Perry will run for president. He has visited major donors in California, begun to assemble a staff and made calls to power brokers in the first-voting state of Iowa. Sarah Palin is rumoured to be preparing to endorse him.

If he does run, we’ll hear a lot about the Texas death penalty, just as we did with Bush in 2000. There will be much outrage expressed among elites, especially in Britain, but until death penalty opponents can come up with a case in which it can be proved an innocent person was executed then the venting will matter little.

What Perry will be able to concentrate on will be his record of job creation – 1.1 million new jobs in Texas during the decade he has been governor – and contrast it with Obama’s feat of increasing national unemployment from 7.3 percent to 9.2 percent thus far.

If Perry’s opponents want to try to change the subject to the death penalty, then that would probably suit the rugged, cowboy-booted Texan just fine.

Read the rest – American Way: Texas execution signals that Rick Perry is poised to run for president