A lot of people are writing Perry off after his awful performance in the Florida debate, but this poll was taken AFTER the disastrous debate.

Perry is not a good debater. He is no match for his rivals, who know federal issues better than he does, and are much better at the tactics of debate. But the debate portion of the campaign is going to come to an end at some point, not too far distant, and when that happens, the focus will shift to meet-and-greets in Iowa and New Hampshire and other swing states. Perry is much better at connecting with people than Romney is. We can all make sport of Perry, but he is still in great position to win the nomination. Connecting with people is his specialty. Romney lacks the common touch.

Tagged: CNN poll, mitt romney, republican presidential primary, rick perry

After one of the early Republican debates, I raised the issue of whether Perry was having problems with his recovery from back surgery. Perry had looked so uncomfortable in that debate that I wondered if he were wearing a back brace. He kept twisting his torso a little, as if he were trying to find a comfortable position. My comments were carried on the web site politicalwire.com and in the National Journal.

Today, the Post’s conservative blogger (“Right Turn”), Jennifer Rubin, addressed the issue:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry had back surgery on July 1. Saturday night David Carney (Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s chief campaign strategist and long-time advisor) confirmed to me via email a report from a source who met with the governor before his made the formal decision to announce that Perry was in a back brace “on in [sic] off for a few weeks in July after his procedure.” He told me Perry had not worn the brace since his August 13 announcement. Carney denied that Perry is now experiencing any back pain or is on any medication. “He is not in any pain — why would he need pain medicine? No he is not taking pain medicine,” he emailed me. I asked if he was tired during the debates. He answered, “Not that I know of.”

As I wrote at the time, I have had back surgery to repair a ruptured disk, and I can sympathize with Perry. What concerned me most was that Perry’s surgery, which, as I recall, involved fusing part of his spine, included an experimental treatment with adult stem cells taken from his hip, a procedure that is not approved by the FDA and that has not been proven to have any clinical benefit, nor is it covered by insurance. (more…)

Tagged: back surgery, rick perry, stem cells, Washington Post

Does anybody else find it ironic that Perry is faltering because of the rare good deeds that he has done, such as the Dream Act and the HPV mandate? The guy spends ten years being a total hardline conservative with a couple of exceptions, and suddenly his own party is turning against him. I find it especially ironic that Perry is accusing his rivals of not having a heart when he has assented to booting who-knows-how-many-hundreds-of-thousands of families off CHIP and Medicaid (in the latter case, by requiring them to re-up every six months, knowing that some would fail to do it and fall off the rolls for half a year). He brags about securing the border, lavishes hundreds of millions of dollars in homeland security funding on border sheriffs in return for their political support, has put up border cameras all over the place in South Texas, may even have some drones flying around down there, but because he scoffs at the effectiveness of a wall, Republicans think he wants to invite every Mexican north of Mexico City to emigrate. The tea party is mad that he won’t call a special session to pass a sanctuary cities bill; let’s hope they don’t find out that the DPS doesn’t enforce immigration laws, nor should it. Even his controversial HPV executive order was a good deed, if somewhat dubiously motivated. It was the wackos in his party that opposed it.

I didn’t think that Perry’s conservative-Democratic past and Al Gore flirtation would be a problem for him, but somehow, the old conservative Democrat in him keeps bubbling up to the surface. (more…)

Tagged: HPV, immigration, rick perry

Could Rick Perry’s stunning loss of the Florida straw poll have been averted? Possibly. The question here is whether the Perry camp was so overconfident that it scheduled him to go to a similar straw poll in Michigan without addressing the delegates in Florida. At the times, Perry and Romney were tied in Florida voting with 25% each. Cain was lagging with 5%. Florida is a much more important state than Michigan. Perry may have erred by foregoing the opportunity to lobby for votes. As it turned out, Cain won by such a large margin–37% to 15% over Perry and 14% over Romney–that Perry’s travels didn’t really affect the outcome. Romney easily won the Michigan straw poll, as expected.

It is hard to imagine Cain as a serious contender for president. Nevertheless, Perry’s success depends to some extent on his ability to reduce the number of major candidates so that he can go head to head with Romney, his major tormentor. So far, not only has he failed to break away from the pack, but one member of the pack has zoomed past him, for the time being. One has to wonder whether Perry’s stumbles have been noticed by Sarah Palin, who can’t seem to make up her mind whether she wants to be in the game or not.

Tagged: Herman Cain, republican presidential primary, rick perry

I wrote a post yesterday under the headline, “The bush leagues,” in which I said that one reason for Perry’s poor performance in the current campaign is that he has had it too easy in Texas during the last ten years–that he has gotten away with ducking debates and dodging the media.

Shortly after I posted that article, I received an e-mail from a friend who sent along a column by a well thought of conservative blogger, who is the author of legalinsurrection.com. Legalinsurrection.com is the work of Professor William A. Jacobson at the Cornell University school of law. His post of 9/23 was extremely critical of Perry’s performance in the Florida debate. I have posted his remarks below. I have removed my friend’s comments from the post in the interest of clarity, even though his observations were trenchant.

Tagged: Gardasil, Katie Thompson, legalinsurrection.com, Michelle Malkin, mitt romney, Paul Krugman, Professor William Jacobson, rick perry, Students for Perry

Self-appointed fiscal watchdog Michael Quinn Sullivan blasted legislators  yesterday (9/23) for a spending program that allows the state to attract and subsidize Hollywood filmmakers who wish to make movies in Texas. I find myself in rare agreement with Mr. Sullivan on this point. When I wrote a story about cutting the budget last October, I zeroed out the Film Commission.

Sullivan based his post on the Empower Texans web site on a Wall Street Journal story. Here is the lead for his article:

While other states have come to their senses about subsidizing Hollywood, Texas’ lawmakers continue pumping taxpayer cash into a scheme of dubious value to Texans and our economy.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that states are halting the subsidies as they find footing the bill for films isn’t as glamorous as the latte-liberals in the film industry would have us all believe.

There is one problem with Sullivan’s analysis. Film subsidies in Texas, while they are included in the state budget that lawmakers vote on, are not really proposed by the Legislature. (more…)

Tagged: Empower Texans, Film Commission, film subsidies, michael quinn sullivan, rick perry

We like to think that Texas politics is as rough as it gets, but it really isn’t. This has been a one-party state since W. defeated Ann in 1994. Perry has had a lot of money spent against him, but he has never been in danger of losing a race since the light gov battle against John Sharp in 1998. Perry has had it so easy in the last decade that I wonder if it has dulled his political acumen. He has looked lost at times in the debates. Last night (Thursday) was one of those times. He couldn’t even deliver his prepackaged lines. He also says things that are patently false, such as his earlier claim that the poverty rate is the highest in history.

The fact is that Perry has gotten this far without ever having to deal with a talented opponent, other than Sharp. He refused to debate Bill White in the general election, on trumped-up grounds; he ducked out on the National Conference of Editorial Writers when they met in Dallas a couple of years ago, choosing to speak with local TV reporters instead; he wouldn’t talk to any newspaper editorial boards in Texas during his race with Bill White. The problem is, he hasn’t had any big-league experience, and it shows. Sooner or later, he was bound to pay a price for not engaging in the give and take of a major political campaign. (more…)

Tagged: republican presidential primary, rick perry, the big leagues

The matter of whether Rick Perry has advocated secession arose on Fox News last night. He insisted that he has never used the s-word, except to refer to signs at tea party rallies that say “SECEDE.” As far as I know, he is right.

Here is what Perry did say back on April 15, 2009, during a raucous aftermath of an Austin tea party rally, when a reporter shouted out:

“Some have associated you with the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state.…”

Perry replied, “Texas is a unique place. When we came in the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

Not true, and it’s rather amazing that Perry made such an egregious historical error. He didn’t use the s-word, but what he did say was incorrect. Texas did not enter the union with the right “to be able to leave if we decided to do that.” It’s pretty much American History 101 that states don’t have the right to leave the Union. Hundreds of thousand of Americans gave their lives to preserve that principle. (more…)

Tagged: American History 101, rick perry, s-word, secede, secession

The Texas tea party’s revolt over Rick Perry’s immigration stand is, well, revolting. I seldom agree with Perry, but he is right this time–right in a moral sense, but wrong politically. Building a wall will not make Texas a better state. Denying scholarships to the children of immigrants will not make Texas a better state. Calling a special session to pass a sanctuary city law,  whose sponsor, Burt Solomons, said “does nothing,” would not make Texas a better state. It’s hard to imagine that the Republican Party is too far to the right for Rick Perry, but that may be the case, as astonishing as it seems. Perry is counting on Hispanic votes to elevate him to the GOP nomination and the presidency, but openly courting Hispanics could result in an erosion of his tea party base.

The Perry campaign does not appear to be a smooth operation. I’m not forecasting doom and gloom. He’s still in great shape in the polls. He has forged a large constituency. But he is running this race as if he were running for governor in Texas, almost as if he were the incumbent. He hasn’t adapted to the format of a primary race, which is like an audition for a movie role: Multiple contestants are more or less reading from the same script, and everything depends upon how well you deliver your lines. (more…)

Tagged: immigration, republican presidential primary, rick perry, Texas Tea Party

Critics of the Justice Department’s refusal to grant preclearance to the Texas House and congressional redistricting maps will no doubt attribute DOJ’s action to politics. And no doubt politics had something to do with it. But I never thought that DOJ would approve a map that ignored the demographic facts, which this map does. Virtually ALL of the growth in Texas’s population in the last decade is attributable to Hispanic growth. How can the state defend a map that does not respond to this reality? How can Texas gain four seats in Congress and none of them be Hispanic seats? This is a travesty. The map overreaches in its creators’ desire to send second-rate Republican legislators to Washington. Mike Jackson? Randy Weber? Give me a break. Sam Rayburn is turning over in his grave.

Tagged: DOJ, preclearance, redistricting maps, texas redistricting