Deroy Murdock: Run Rick Run

Had not planned to do another on Rick Perry today but this one from Human Events was too good to pass up as it shows the difference between President George W Bush who was also the Governor of Texas and Rick Perry the current Governor of Texas.  Governor Perry is his own person who shows his own individual compassion but doesn't believe in "compassionate conservatism" -- he believes in people helping people not the Government taking over and putting in new regulations and mandates to help people.  It is one thing for the Federal Government to get involved in natural disasters but another to get involved in our everyday lives.

Rick Perry really is that true West Texan with a backbone of steel when it comes to his beliefs that the Federal Government has way overreached in getting involved in day to day business of the states as more and more power is ending up in DC when it should be at the state level.  Seriously thought President Bush would fight the EPA after all the problems they gave Texas and Oklahoma but frankly didn't see any change.  Unlike his predecessor, Rick Perry is already standing up against the Government more regulations and mandates including standing up to the current occupant of the White House.  He is continually fighting the EPA so a Rick Perry as President should make things interesting for the EPA.  Maybe he should appoint Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to head the EPA or Department of Interior -- that would make some liberal heads explode!

Rick Perry didn't grow up in a wealthy family but came from the small west Texas town of Paint Creek about 60 miles north of Abilene.  He is a graduate of Texas A&M where he was a yell leader for the Corps of Cadets and upon graduation was commissioned in the US Air Force flying C-130's.  After four years, he left the regular Air Force with the rank of Captain and returned to West Texas to go into cotton farming with his Dad.  He was a Democrat until he saw the light in 1990 and ran for the statewide Agriculture Commissioner which he won.   My first time to vote in Texas and Governor Perry was the first state government candidate I voted for that won.

In the 2010 Governor's Republican Primary, Kay Bailey Hutchinson was heavily supported by President GHW Bush and his group of supporters along with Mitt Romney.  Perry won in a three-way primary without a runoff.   There is no better example than the 2010 race to show Rick Perry is not the choice of the Bush establishment but he is certainly the choice of many of us in the grassroots.

This article by Murdock shows what I keep hearing about the lack of satisfaction toward the current people in the race.  They don't inspire you to want to get out and work for them 24/7.  They are nice people but don't bring the experience or the passion of a Rick Perry.  He will hit the ground running the minute he announces and the whole dynamic of race will change from lackluster to one full of energy.  We couldn't agree more with RUN RICK RUN!

Run Rick Run
by Deroy Murdock  

June 17, 2011 

Four summers ago, 73 percent of Republicans were satisfied with the candidates seeking the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Now, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll revealed on Wednesday, only 45 percent of Republicans are happy with today’s 2012 contenders.
Texas governor Rick Perry, 61, could cure the GOP’s ennui. As America’s economy slumbers, Perry tells a stimulating story about Texas’ pro-market growth and job creation, two subjects that top the American mind. 

Between January 2001 and June 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates, Texas’ non-farm employment grew from 9,542,400 in January 2001, when Perry took office, to 10,395,800 in June 2010 — an increase of 853,400 or 8.9 percent. Big-government California simultaneously lost 827,800 jobs. Employment in Texas grew more than in the other 49 states combined. 

Since June 2009, when the Great Recession officially ended, Texas has produced 265,300 net jobs, equal to 36.7 percent of the 722,200 positions created nationwide.
For seven years running, CEOs polled by Chief Executive magazine have rated Texas first in business development and job growth. Texas boasts 58 Fortune 500 companies — more than any other state. 

As America’s No. 1 exporting state, Texas shipped $206.6 billion in goods abroad last year, composing 16 percent of America’s $1.28 trillion in exports. California’s $14.4 billion in exports ranked it second, with 11.2 percent of U.S. outflow. 

Texas’ achievements so stunned Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic lieutenant governor, that he flew a delegation to Austin last May to ask Perry how he lures defectors from the Golden State. Of the 70 companies that fled California in 2011, the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reported last April, 14 relocated to Texas — these exiles’ primary destination. 

So, what is Perry’s secret? Texas taxes neither personal incomes nor capital gains, and Perry proposed a 2010 constitutional amendment to require two-thirds supermajorities to legislate tax hikes. Beyond that, as Perry told Manhattan Republicans Tuesday, “don’t spend all the money.” He advised “a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable” as well as “a legal system that doesn’t allow for over-suing.” Thus, Perry signed a ground-breaking “loser pays” tort-reforms and medical-litigation rules that caused malpractice-insurance rates to fall. Some 20,000 doctors since have flooded Texas. 

Texas is a Right to Work state, which Perry should trumpet nationally. He should demand a woman’s right to choose…whether or not to join a union. 

On December 21, 2000, while Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was casting some of his 129 “present” votes, Perry took over a state government that now features some 384,000 workers and a $172.5 billion biennial budget. While Obama’s oratory often soars, he sometimes seems disengaged and indecisive — as if the Oval Office were a training facility. As Texas’ governor for a record 10 years, Perry’s executive experience is quadruple Obama’s. 

Perry’s biggest challenge may be that he is the governor of Texas. Americans suffered through the mitigated disaster that was G.W. Bush’s presidency. They may recoil at electing another commander in chief from Austin. Perhaps more worrisome for Perry are his appearance and mannerisms. At a well-delivered speech to the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank in Dallas on April 28, Perry did not quite resemble Bush. However, he mirrored actor James Brolin’s portrayal of the 43rd president in Oliver Stone’s film W. 

Perry can overcome this potential handicap by loudly and explicitly distancing himself from the White House’s disgraced former occupant. 

Perry should remind voters of the aristo-socialist Bush’s LBJ-like spendaholism and Carteresque regulatory overreach (e.g. Bush’s repugnant 2007 ban on Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb, effective 2012). Perry should declare that his domestic agenda will not echo Bush’s, much beyond tax relief and school choice. 

As the un-Obama and un-Bush, Perry soon could emerge as a seasoned, competent, growth-generating conservative. This should unite the Republican base, make Tea Partiers boil with glee, and magnetize independents and sensible Democrats. If so, voters just might dispatch Barack Obama to design his presidential library. 

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Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.