We have talked about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s record on our talk show series on the GOP candidates. During the episode we mentioned his endorsement of Al Gore in 1988 and we said that it was forgivable that he was a Democrat and it was even forgivable that he endorsed Gore – although we did ponder why the establishment wing of the GOP has such a fascination with Democrats turned Republicans. What we determined to be unforgivable was Governor Perry’s continued support of much Democrat-like, big government, bureaucratic legislation and issues. He talks a real hard line on certain Republican issues as though he believes intensifying his presentation and refusing to back down, even when his statements come off as distasteful, will allow him a free pass on the other issues where he breaks from the traditional party line.
Take for example his support in 1993, four years after switching to the Republican Party, of HillaryCare! His letter of support can be downloaded as a PDF here. It is on his official stationery as Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture and hand signed “Rick”. In the letter he tells Mrs. Clinton, among other things, that her “efforts are worthy,” and that he hopes she “will remember [his] constituency as the task force progresses.” He also told her that her effort to establish national healthcare is “most commendable.”
Governor Perry also apparently sees no similarities between a mandated inoculation of preteen girls and a mandate that every US citizen have health insurance. Nor is he able to understand that tax cuts without spending cuts that result in a growing deficit is not a conservative move. Tax cuts are an important part of a fiscal conservative’s platform, but only when partnered with spending cuts that in the long term will put the budget in the black. Perhaps Governor Perry should look to Governors Johnson (NM) and Huntsman (UT) for examples on how this is done.
Turns out that the letter behind a candidates name doesn’t mean a whole lot (shock!), as proven by the Republican version of Rick Perry. The recent media attention paid to Perry’s campaign and the recent polls that show voters abandoning Bachmann in droves to support the governor prove that the majority of candidates are members of the status quo that are essentially interchangeable. The only thing that makes one of them more appealing than the other is the sound byte of the week and the mainstream media’s portrayal (what happened to the GOP’s skepticism of the lame-stream?) of who the front runner supposedly is.