Why is Romney Running Again?

Polls are showing Gov Perry with a double digit lead over Romney, the grassroots is impressed with him wherever he goes, and he can take on Obama because he has a solid record to stand on as Governor.  What's not to like that has the Bush 41 Establishment types all in a panic mode dropping article after article or sniping at him in interviews trying to take out Perry who just keeps going.  The last paragraph of this article from the American Spectator sums it up perfectly:

And success on the issues that concern the actual voters, rather than the opinions of establishment retreads, is the only foundation upon which any Republican can build a 2012 victory over Barack Obama. Regardless of which candidate wins the GOP presidential nomination, the President and his minions will use the same strategy. Because they cannot run on their record, they will promulgate a few disingenuous talking points about the real issues and then  launch a vicious campaign of personal vilification. Only a candidate with the support of rank-and-file Republicans, including Tea Partiers, and a clear record of success on jobs and health care will be able to survive and overcome this strategy. Rick Perry has what it takes and Mitt Romney doesn't.   

Think I am going to borrow David Catron's "opinions of establishment retreads" -- love the retreads comment because that is exactly what has been happening since the Nixon years -- same people brought back into Government from both sides.  Bet you won't find all the Bush #41 people in a Perry Administration.  Maybe that is what Rove and other 'retreads' are so concerned about -- no job in a Republican Administration.  Now that would be progress!

The funniest was Romney calling Perry a career politician when Romney ran in 1994, lost to Ted Kennedy or shall we say blew the race, then the Mormom Church made sure he was head of the Winter Olympics, went back to Massachusetts after that to run for Governor and then quit after one term to prepare himself to run for President not once but twice.  What is the difference everyone is pointing out -- Perry won his races and has a track record he can stand on as Ag Commissioner, Lt Governor, and Governor.  Perry couldn't afford to take off years to prepare to run for President like Romney. 

Romney self-financing his own races doesn't translate to votes like a candidate who gets small donors in large numbers donating their $20 to a campaign.  Then you have the Mormon stiff arming in the states to get their members to donate to Mormon candidates, but who will vote for another candidate in the secrecy of the ballot box.  That is part of the reason that Romney has lost all but the Massachusetts Governor's race when he relied on his time as head of the Olympics to propel him into office. Has his wife cut off his use of the family fortune this time that has been rumored?  Is that why Romney is trying to get all the money out of Wall Street?  What is he promising for their donations -- the status quo?  

Since leaving office in 2006, what has Romney been doing except telling people he is unemployed.  Where is the track record of achievement for the last five years?  He didn't even follow through on his promise to help McCain win in places like Michigan -- he never campaigned for him there or much of anyplace.  Rudy was all over helping McCain.  

Some establishment retreads have already complained that Oil and Gas is going to give big to Governor Perry and they will be in his hip pocket.  They don't know the Governor.  He understands their plight and what they have been going through with the excessive EPA regulations and Obama moratoriums on Gulf Oil Drilling which has costs thousands and thousands of jobs along the Gulf Coast.   At the same time he signed a law on using fracking to drill so all chemicals used are disclosed.  Sure doesn't sound like someone in their hip pocket or he wouldn't have wanted the fracking disclosure bill. 

Perry understands that this Country has an abundance of  oil and gas that is waiting to be drilled to help make the Country more self sufficient.  Unlike some candidates, he also understands that you have to take the environment into consideration where you want to drill.  It is foolish for any candidate to want to drill everywhere in the United States and shows a lack of knowledge about drilling for oil and gas.  The Everglades is not a good place to drill even with their abundance of oil because of the ecological factors involved while West Texas in the Permian Basin is perfect in spite of a beetle or a lizard.  The ecological damage from an oil spill in West Texas versus the Everglades is world's apart.  

You have oil and gas for Perry and Wall Street for Romney.  Oil and gas wants to create jobs for more Americans and have the country become more self sufficient and less dependent on foreign oil from OPEC.  Wall Street likes the status quo from the Fed along with the weak dollar and looks to be addicted to the Federal bailouts/stimulus packages while paying their CEO's big bonuses.  Perry wins that battle as well with most Republicans.

Why is the GOP establishment so against Rick Perry?  Are they afraid he will join the Congress is doing away with a lot of regulations and programs like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) that the Bush Family and others have made millions of dollars first with Neil Bush and then other family members with NCLB?  Do they prefer the status quo on the economy as the rich get richer and the middle class savings keep dwindling?  Is this all about money or about power or both?  This is so far over the top with the attacks, they have only served to galvanize his support among the rank and file grassroots Republicans and a lot of the local Tea Party.  

It is so obvious what is happening that site after site has caught on to the Bush 41/Rove/Romney attempts to take out Governor Perry and are not afraid to bring it out in the open.  Are the duo willing to try and split the GOP to give us Romney?  UGH!  What remains the biggest question is WHY?

Now the American Spectator comes along with the facts in this David Catron article that shows the Bush 41 establishment mantra of Romney can win against Obama not Perry is flat out wrong:

Political HayWhy Perry Can Beat Obama and Romney Can'tBy David Catron on 8.30.11 @ 6:09AM 

Most of the GOP establishment is uncomfortable with Rick Perry. Few have openly attacked the Texas governor, as Karl Rove did when Perry criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. However, the grumblings of former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan​, a number of former Bush aides, and sundry other Republican luminaries have made it clear that they would prefer to see Mitt Romney as the GOP standard-bearer in 2012. Even inveterate RINO-basher Ann Coulter​ has said "Romney could actually beat Obama" and that Perry "won't live up to expectations." Coulter and the GOP establishment are wrong. Not only is Perry the favorite of rank-and-file Republicans, he is far better positioned than Romney to debate the President on the two issues that will inevitably dominate next year's campaign -- jobs and health care. 

On jobs, Perry has a story to tell that Romney can't hope to match. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, "Some 37% of all net new American jobs since the recovery began were created in Texas." While most states have experienced anemic job growth since June of 2009, and eighteen governors have watched their states endure actual declines in growth, Governor Perry has presided over a state economy that has added 265,300 new jobs. That makes Texas the most prolific job generator in the nation. By contrast, Mitt Romney's record on job creation is lackluster at best. Job growth during his single term as Governor of Massachusetts was less than one percent, which "badly lagged other high-skill, high-wage, knowledge economy states like New York (2.7%), California (4.7%) and North Carolina (7.6%)." 

Consider this in the context of the upcoming presidential campaign: Rick Perry can contrast Obama's truly pathetic record on jobs with his own remarkable success. He can stand before the country in a debate and call out the President on his failed big-government agenda and say, as Charles Krauthammer recently phrased it, "Smaller government, I made it work, I created jobs." Romney, on the other hand, simply can't press the President on unemployment without being reminded that the Bay State "ranked 47th in the entire country in jobs growth" during his term as Massachusetts Governor. In other words, while Perry can go on the offensive, Romney would be reduced to defending his own record rather than highlighting Obama's abysmal performance on the economy. 

Romney's inability to press the President on job creation would be compounded by his impotence on Obamacare. At least half of the voters are still seething about that pernicious piece of legislation and the political skulduggery that was used to ram it down their throats. These voters will expect the Republican presidential nominee to go after the President on Obamacare, and Romney is utterly toothless on that issue. Why? The two-thousand page monstrosity that the White House and its legions of allies in the "news" media hilariously call the "Affordable Care Act" was modeled after the Massachusetts "universal coverage" legislation that Romney himself signed into law in 2006. And that ill-conceived law, commonly known as Romneycare, has been a fiscal and medical disaster for the Bay State. 

Thus, Romney can't criticize Obamacare's many offensive features without looking like a cheap political flip-flopper. He cannot, for example, credibly denounce the egregious individual mandate because it is modeled after a similar provision of Romneycare. Nor will his oft-repeated point that the Massachusetts mandate was enacted at the state level, and is therefore constitutional, cut much ice with the voters. They will be less interested in arcane nuances of the Commerce Clause than in the fact that they will be forced to buy government-approved insurance whether they want it or not. Likewise, Romney can't hit the President for producing a "reform" law that Obama's own administration admits will increase rather than decrease medical costs. His own health care "reform" law produced identical results. 

Rick Perry suffers from none of Romney's disabilities on health care. First, he isn't burdened by a failed health care albatross that will prevent him from aggressively going after the President on Obamacare. Unlike Romney, he can vehemently denounce the insurance mandate as an unconstitutional attack on individual liberty without having any similar abomination in his own record thrown back in his face. Moreover, because his record in Texas has emphasized the free market rather than state interference, he can credibly denounce the President's top-down approach to health care reform. While Romney must live down an Obama-like inclination toward government-imposed solutions, Perry's record demonstrates a clear bias in the other direction and allows him to more freely criticize Obama's big-government philosophy. 

This, of course, begs the following question: How do the results of Perry's approach compare to those of Romney's? Well, as Avik Roy recently put it, "If you're most concerned about runaway government spending, Perry is the clear winner. If the rising cost of health insurance is your primary worry, Perry wins there too." Among the reasons Perry wins in these areas is tort reform. In 2003, Perry convinced Texas voters to approve a cap on non-economic medical malpractice damages for physicians and hospitals. This initiative not only helped control the rise of health care costs due to defensive medicine, it helped deliver Texas from a growing problem that still bedevils Massachusetts -- physician shortages. In fact, tort reform has worked so well in this regard that the New York Times reluctantly reported its success. 

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Read More at the  American Spectator