Criticism From Bush Crowd Could Help Perry

No son of the Lone Star State was elected to the White House until 1964 when John F. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, won the presidency in his own right. Ronald Reagan’s vice-president, former Houston congressman George H.W. Bush, moved up to the top spot in the 1988 election. Then, in 2000, his son, George W. Bush, gained the presidency through a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court and, four years later, was the first Texan to win a second term.


Now, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is seeking to become the first Texan to be elected president without first being vice-president or the son of a president.


Perry’s Texas roots are far deeper than those of either Bush. Despite his years in the Texas oil industry, the elder Bush never lost his New England-bred gentility and Bush the younger, though exhibiting the drawl and the gait of a Texas cowpoke, was also New England-born and schooled at Phillips Academy, Yale and Harvard. By contrast, Perry is a fifth-generation Texan. He earned his boots growing up on a ranch and running a cotton farm with his dad. Like George W. Bush, Perry was a frat boy prankster and yell leader in college, but at Texas A&M, not in the Ivy League.


In many ways, though, Perry is George W. on steroids.




Bush was a National Guard pilot with a spotty attendance record. Perry was an Air Force pilot who flew airlift missions in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, attaining the rank of captain.


Bush served two terms as governor. Perry became the longest-serving chief executive in Texas history after moving up from lieutenant governor when Bush became president.


Both men are devout evangelical Christians, but Bush kept his religion mostly private while Perry is so public with his beliefs that he recently organized a revival in Houston that drew 30,000 participants to whom he delivered a 12-minute sermon.


Neither man could be called a great intellect, but, where Bush was inarticulate and a bit awkward on the campaign trail, Perry is able to speak his mind in a coherent way and wade into a crowd with gusto.


Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. In his book, Fed Up!, Perry said Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional, socialistic schemes that usurp the powers of state governments.


Bush pandered to the right wing on guns, abortion, small government and cutting taxes. But he let the federal deficit skyrocket as he followed the single mission that seemed to genuinely engage him, the war on terror. Perry doesn’t merely pander, he believes. He has delighted the pro-gun lobby by brandishing a pistol in public, enraptured the small government crowd by hinting that secession is a solution to federal intrusions and helped turn up the heated Obama-is-a-socialist rhetoric as the Tea Party gathered steam.


Tony Fratto, a highly respected former Bush official, took to Twitter to say much the same thing. And Fratto and Rove weren’t alone; plenty of establishment Republicans with ties to the Bush White House echoed those sentiments privately.


There’s just one problem: It doesn’t appear as though the GOP establishment has learned much about the Tea Party, an amorphous group of movement conservatives who don’t like being told how to think by the establishment.


Witness this comment on Twitter by Dana Loesch, a high-profile Tea Party activist who often appears on CNN: “I will lose respect for [the] Perry campaign if they walk back the Bernanke remarks one inch.” They didn’t; Perry’s aides said simply that he is passionate about fiscal issues.


What’s more, Tea Partiers have said repeatedly that they were nearly as turned off by President Bush and his administration several years ago as they are by Democrats in charge of Washington today. If “the Bushies” are already attacking Perry, it may help separate the new candidate further from the 43rd president and lend him more credibility with conservatives.


A former strategist for Mitt Romney who is close to Bush’s circle suggested that the Bush crowd is nervous about how the former president’s legacy will be treated publicly with a surging Perry in the race. The strategist said the Bush team ought to relax, agreeing that their criticism will only elevate Perry and win him more attention.


It’s easy to see why the Bush team is concerned. In 2007, Perry said that Bush was never a fiscal conservative, and today, he touts himself as the ultimate fiscal conservative.


What’s more, the Perry campaign is not missing an opportunity to distinguish their candidate from Bush in other ways. Perry's wife, Anita, said this at an event in Cedar Rapids on Monday: “A woman asked me today at the fair, she said, ‘Tell me the difference between him and George W. Bush. They’re both Texans.’ And she said, ‘Do you think Rick would be as good a president as President Bush?’ And I said, ‘Well ma’am, he would be better. He’s my husband.’ ”


And Perry himself told CNN that he had a markedly different upbringing than Bush did, which helped define him. “He’s a Yale graduate; I’m a Texas A&M grad,” Perry said Monday.


The Texas governor’s top advisers have long maintained that there is no feud with Bush, or they chalk it up to staff rivalries. Perry's chief of staff, Ray Sullivan, said to RCP: “The Bush issue is exaggerated in my view. The governor and president have a good relationship. A number of our senior staff worked for George W. Bush.”


But, he continued, “President Bush is not running for reelection. President Obama is. Governor Perry is running to defeat President Obama.

Rick Perry Takes Texas Media Strategy To National Stage

And to the campaign trail, where Rick Perry has burst on to the scene and has been causing quite a stir.

He entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination just five days ago, but already Texas Gov. Rick Perry is making waves. On Monday, in Iowa, he went after Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, with an ominous warning against any expansion of the money supply.

I mean, printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous, in my opinion.

Since June of 2009 -- you know, Texas is about eight percent of the population of America total, but 40 percent of all the new jobs created in the United States were in the state of Texas.

Dave Mann, executive editor of the Texas Observer, also said Perry’s first days on the trail haven't been out-of character, considering that “he’s made some rather outlandish comments in the past to get his point across.”

“Even if the Bernanke line was a slip up, the Perry people won't back down,” Mann continued, referring to Tuesday’s suggestion that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke could be almost guilty of treason. “They're not going to apologize or show weakness. Of all the potentially controversial things Perry's said and done over the years, I can remember only one real apology -- when he said 'Adios, Mofo' to a Houston television reporter.”

The “Mofo” comment notwithstanding, Mann and several Texas reporters told The Huffington Post that Perry doesn't have a hostile relationship with the press. He’ll give interviews on the campaign trail, but usually doesn't take a lot of impromptu questions at events and surely won't gab with reporters like John McCain on the old “Straight Talk Express."

However, Perry's made a point of ignoring at least one segment of the Texas media.

R.G Ratcliffe, a reporter who’s covered Perry for the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman, and is currently working on a biography of the governor, said “his relationship with reporters is better than his relationship with editorial boards.”

Perry didn’t lose sleep when Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) racked up newspaper endorsements during their 2010 gubernatorial primary fight. The joke in Perry’s camp, according to Ratcliffe, was that they should give the Hutchinson campaign money to keep running a television ad boasting about support from editorial pages across the Lone Star state.

However, Perry did speak at a Dallas meeting of the National Conference of Editorial Writers last September -- an appearance that didn't help his relationship with editorial boards.

Colleen McCain Nelson, an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, recalled that Perry flouted the ground rules that he’d take questions after addressing the crowd. She said it wasn’t because he appeared to be in any sort of rush, either. “When it came time to take questions,” she said, “he left and posed for pictures in the hall, like he had all the time in the world.”

NCEW president Tom Waseleski, in a letter to Perry, said he was “stunned and disappointed” the governor left without taking questions. “If you had hoped to make a positive impression on this national press group,” he concluded, “I must tell you that you utterly failed.”

WILL THE 2010 STRATEGY WORK IN 2012?

Despite angering some editorial writers -- and taking heat in the press for breaking tradition and not debating his Democratic challenger -- Perry handily won re-election in 2010. Still, Perry's campaign may tinker with the Texas strategy when politically advantageous, such as competing for influential endorsements in close-fought state primary fights.

“I would be stunned if Rick Perry does not go to the Union Leader or the Des Moines Register if they want to do an editorial board meeting,” said R.G. Ratcliffe, referring to the most influential newspapers in early voting states New Hampshire and Iowa.

A Perry spokesman, reached by email, did not offer a comment about the candidate’s plans. But there are already some signs he may be more receptive than he was in the past. In June, Perry reportedly met with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, an indication that he was already thinking nationally months ago. (A Wall Street Journal spokesman declined to comment.)

Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, who wrote about Perry's success despite shunning the media in 2010, said he doesn’t expect the now-presidential candidate to alter his Texas media strategy. I think Perry will incorporate lessons he's learned from recent elections,” McKinnon wrote in an email. “And bypassing the mainstream print media editorial boards will likely be on the list.”

But Randy Evans, editorial page editor for the Des Moines Register, said he hopes Perry considers meeting with the editorial board before the caucuses.

“At a certain point, whether he likes the Des Moines Register or not, or whether he likes the media or not, there’s this whole business of Iowans and readers and that sort of thing, where you’d hope he’d see the value in engaging in that kind of discussion,” Evans said.

All the top Democratic and Republican contenders met with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board prior to the 2008 caucuses, according to Evans, although Sen. John McCain -- who got the Republican endorsement -- only stopped by in September 2007.

Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid said in an email that the paper doesn’t have an editorial board, but said “we do try to meet with all the candidates and like to have interview-stories on each but there is no set calendar for that.

Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?

I have known Rick Perry since 1987 when we served in the Texas House together. I’ve always admired him as a dedicated conservative and for his devotion to his family and his faith. His principled leadership has carried Texas through one of our nation’s worst economic downturns because Texans agreed with him that low taxes, less regulation, and less litigation would unleash entrepreneurship and create jobs.


Austin Ron Paul supporter has taken out a full-page ad in the local alt weekly newspaper seeking any "stripper ... escort ... or 'young hottie'" who has slept with Rick Perry, part of his single-minded jihad against the presidential candidate.


Robert Morrow describes himself as a "self-employed investor and political activist" as well as a three-time delegate to the Texas state GOP convention.


"Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?" blares the ad, placed in this week's Austin Chronicle. "Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a 'young hottie' impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas? Contact CASH, and we will help you publicize your direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, 'family values' hypocrite and fraud."


CASH is the Committee Against Sexual Hypocrisy, of which Morrow is president. "Is it a real group? No. It's just me," he told Salon earlier this week. Here is the ad, which the paper confirmed is running today.