Gov. 39% not the brightest bulb . . uh, the brightest political future

Yesterday, the National Journal asked their group of Republican insiders "Who among your party's current crop of governors has the brightest political future?"

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/ip_20090516_8934.php


Winning with 21 % was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, followed by:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour 20 percent
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty 17 percent
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist 13 percent
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford 8 percent
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. 6 percent


National Journal noted, "Also receiving votes: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 5 percent each; no one, 2 percent; California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and "Pawlenty and Sanford," 1 percent each.


Rick Perry received no mention whatsoever.

Perry has been busy with more important things


. . . like having his spokesman criticize Kay Bailey Hutchison's bumper sticker contest. As reported by the Houston Chronicle


http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/archives/2009/05/no_detail_too_s.html


"You might think the winners of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's bumper sticker contest would be of little interest to Gov. Rick Perry's camp as the legislative session enters its final days with major issues still up in the air.
You'd be wrong on that."


Mark Miner, a Perry spokesman, found fault with the contest and the winners. He is quoted as saying, "They should apologize to the three other people who may have participated in this questionable contest."

For the Hutchison campaign, Hans Klinger asked: "Why is Rick Perry's taxpayer funded mouthpiece more concerned about bumper sticker contests than he is the work of the legislature?"


It seems to me that people on the Governor's staff should be working on the business of the people of Texas, not officially commenting on Hutchison's contest that was solely a function of her campaign and that did not make any mention of Perry whatsoever that might have necessitated a response from his office.


Meanwhile, the Governor was busy writing his op-ed


First, I'll never believe that Rick Perry actually writes anything. Let us say that one or several ghostwriters came up with the piece that is in today's Statesman:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/editorial/stories/insight/05/17/0517perry_edit.html

I think it's interesting that this explanation appears so long after the fact. Does he write very slowly? As a work by committee, did it take this long for it to go through several drafts and approvals?

Given Perry's attempt since the creation of the Trans-Texas Corridor in 2003 to disempower the rural landowners of Texas, he has a nerve talking about the powers reserved to the people.

He criticizes the federal government for "passing trillion-dollar bailouts [think $183.5 billion for the TTC, according to Corridor Watch], bullying states [think bullying of Texans by Perry's TxDOT], and even taking control of private companies [think taking the land of Texans FOR Cintra, a private company].

Then he praises "the concept of limited government," and he claims that "citizens and taxpayers should be outraged" by what the federal government is doing.

Do you think that he still doesn't know what we are outraged about? It is Perry and his friends, the big government/large private corporation partnerships that are working against the landowning citizens of Texas, the small businesses, the farm and ranch families, the people who are the backbone of the state. Perry has tried to institute a corporative state where large private concerns are able to take over and use the power of government to oppress the individual and take his private property.

With his op-ed, Perry is not going to win over the voters who know his true colors, and he's lost some of the folks who thought he WAS speaking favorably about secession and agreed with him. Now, as far as they're concerned, he's "gone wobbly" on the issue. As Peter Stern comments, "Confucius once stated, 'Beware of the man who blows hot and cold with one breath.' He must have been speaking with Gov. Rick Perry in mind."