I sent the previous version to trash, will try to post again later this evening. The gist is, Romney leads Cain by double digits in New Hampshire and Florida, but Iowa and South Carolina are closer. Perry is at best middling in all four states.
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Dave says:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/10/26/topstate1.pdf
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Robert Morrow says:
The Rick Perry pinata-a-thon continues; this time over at Rolling Stone with a delicious piece –
hilarious and truthful – by Matt Taibbi entitled “Rick Perry: The Best Little Whore in Texas”
It covers all the bases on Perry from corporate cronyism to the “salacious rumors” about him.
Matt Taibbi: “Rick Perry brings shallow to a new level. He is very gifted in that regard. He could be the Adolf Hitler of shallow…
But such superficial criticisms of his weirdly erratic campaign demeanor don’t even begin to get at the root of why we should all be terrified of Perry and what he represents. After all, you have to go pretty far to stand out as a whore and a sellout when you come from a state that has produced such luminaries in the history of political corruption as LBJ, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. But Rick Perry has managed to set a scary new low in the annals of opportunism, turning Texas into a swamp of political incest and backroom dealing on a scale not often seen this side of the Congo or Sierra Leone… Favors are the one consistent thread running through Perry’s political career. Throughout his time as governor, whenever his ideology or his religion comes into conflict with the need to give a handout to a major campaign donor, ideology and religion lose every single time….
The total of hard-money donations to Perry’s three gubernatorial campaigns is $102 million,” says McDonald, who tracks the state’s pay-for-play system on behalf of Texans for Public Justice. “Half of that, $51 million plus, came from just 204 donors.” …At first, like many of today’s would-be Tea Party leaders, Perry started off trying to milk big government rather than dismantle it…When the state land commissioner asked him to sponsor a bill, Perry told the commissioner not to bother explaining it. “I wouldn’t understand it anyway,” Perry said.
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Robert Morrow Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Here is the link to the excellent Matt Taibbi piece. This article is going to have some pretty big impact. Many Texans know these unpleasant things about Perry, but this sums the disaster up nicely for a national audience.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rick-perry-the-best-little-whore-in-texas-20111026
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John Johnson Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Pretty damning piece that Taibbi wrote. Let’s see how much of an airing it gets. Thanks for posting the link.
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Governor Toolshed Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I know, who would want to read Rolling Stone?
“Low energy, low substance,” sighs Justin Ryan, one of the conference attendees. “That’s sort of the candidate in general.”
paulburka Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 5:46 am
Rolling Stone has a lot of readers nationally, but they are not the demographic group that would be supportive of Perry. I think the story will have a lot of readers in Washington, but I don’t think it will move the needle in, say, Iowa.
Cow Droppings Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
No self-respecting journalist with an ounce of fairness would follow this horseshit.
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ghostofann Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Truth hurts, I guess.
paulburka Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 5:51 am
My impression of the story is that it is very artfully written to gut Perry, that some of the writing is over the top, and that the research is one-stop shopping with Craig McDonald. There wasn’t much in it that people who follow Texas politics don’t already know. Perry enriched his friends. And yet, when you look at his tax return, there is no indication that he enriched himself at all.
Bill says:
I read the whole article. It sums up in a nutshell everything I have hated about Rick Perry. I can’t believe my fellow Texans can’t see through Perry’s cheap veneer.
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John Johnson says:
After reading his piece, I don’t believe anyone could state that Taibbi was writing from an objective standpoint. I would, in fact, take great pleasure in rubbing his nose in a big pile of it. He is “one of them”.
He does, however, sum up our Governor much as I see him…the same way I have him pegged.
Sorry, CD, I call ‘um like I see ‘um. If I had a chance to know Perry personally, as a friend, I might not be as critical…I am loyal to a fault, I’ve been told.
Perry is a user and abuser, he is morally lacking, he is good looking, and, up to now, has had unbelievably good poltical instinct. This has been great for him and his friends…bad for the average Texan. The hell of it is, most of them getting the short end of the stick don’t even know it.
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Robert Morrow says:
“Liliana Ros, a party committeewoman in Florida, shook Perry’s hand during a commercial break at the Orlando debate and promptly finked on him to reporters, offering a pervy description that was missing only the open raincoat and the raging boner. “He grabbed my hand and held on to it,” Ros said. “His hand was so cold, like ice. And he was sweating. He didn’t seem well, like he was in pain or he was sick or something. I don’t know what it was, but something was definitely wrong.”
On Thursday, Sept 22nd, the Florida Republican Debate was the day of Rick’s Orlando’s Improvised Explosive Device IED – which Rick assembled himself and jumped up and down just to see if that baby would work — that was the SAME day Larry Flynt offered $1,000,000 to anyone with any information about an illicit “gay or straight sexual encounter with Governor Perry.”
I’m thinking Perry might have been a little or a lot unnerved by that.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/22/larry-flynt-offers-1-million-for-sexual-dirt-on-perry/
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Jerry Only says:
Fairness? Eh. Tiabbi went into the article with an obvious agenda and uses some pretty extreme rhetoric (duh). But he also does damn good research and nails Perry to a tee.
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Robert Morrow Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 12:18 am
Yep.
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ghostofann Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Taibbi doesn’t pull punches, and writes in the gonzo journalism style of Hunter S. Thompson. That’s why he’s my favorite journalist.
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Anonymous says:
All journalism is subjective. Reporters decide which questions will be asked, and which answers will be used, to present the story they find. So claiming a story is not objective is disingenuous, at best. That said, the question is: does Taibbi, whatever his motivation, portray an accurate picture of Perry.
I think y’all have answered that.
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Harry says:
Tiabbi went after Perry from the first graph. He leads with a lack of objectivity, and slathers over the facts with a leftist bias.
Yet…the facts shine through. You…we…may despise the messenger, but his message is spot on.
He’s. Nailed. Rick.
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paulburka Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 5:57 am
I didn’t see any leftist bias. That is, there was nothing in the story about Perry being a heartless conservative or anything like that. It was all about crony capitalism, and Perry has no defense.
The thing that interested me the most in the story was the speech he gave in Georgia. Ten minutes or low energy and he walked off the stage. Does he really want to run? Is his health more of an issue than we know?
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Anonymous says:
Perry only has Perry to blame….not debates, reporters, journalists, economies, opponents, staff, etc. …….nothing but himself
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John Johnson says:
Up early for trip and wondering why, as Paul or someone else asked a few weeks ago, where all the Perry supporters are who used to banter back and forth with us here.
CD has hung in, and I respect him for doing so.
Someone in Texas could have written a toned down, less hateful piece like this several years ago. I am upset with the Texas media for not doing so. I stared to type that the outcome of the last governor’s race might have been different had someone done so, but then realized how weak the competition has been during his entire reign…KBH included.
Dylan Ratigan has also stated that 94% of elections have been won in the past by the person with the most money in the bank. This being the case, no one was going displace Perry and his pay-for-pay network.
This is why we need to get money out of the game and level the playing field. I encourage you to go to http://www.getmoneyout.com and read about what others are proposing to do to accomplish this goal.
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Anonymous Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 5:50 am
I will go there to take a look. Up for a trip myself this morning… I am hoping that the TX media will meet in a forum next year to discuss how this group will follow TX politics in the future. I recall that in races past, if anyone was brave enough to produce “negative” news on the Governor, Team Perry would call out the reporter and try to smear him personally. I think the media in TX rather wanted to be Team Perry’s friend and decided to give him a pass – each and every time. Good example: why didn’t a TX reporter find that rock years ago? Maybe it was all that ad money coming in. The internet is beating up the traditioanl media, and political ads are a steady source of revenue. If you called out Perry on anything, would you get an ad buy? Don’t know the answer to that. But something has got to change with the media in Texas. The press has got to start covering candidates. My hat off to the Texas Monthly and Burka, as I believe they are the last holdouts in regards to a “free press” in TX. This Blog, such as it is with Morrow comments, is where the free press still resides in the Lone Star State.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 6:06 am
“This Blog, such as it is with Morrow comments, is where the free press still resides in the Lone Star State.”
The Burka/Morrow blog. I rest my case.
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longleaf says:
People who think “the media” could have taken down Rick Perry while he was in Texas don’t understand the way Texans, most of whom are instinctive right-wingers (they just switched from being right-wing Dems to right-wing GOPers over the last few decades), view “the media.”
They view it as “lamestream” in the same way Sarah Palin does. “Lib’rul” media attacks from whatever source in this state would only have served to strengthen Perry. Outside Texas is “a whole ‘nother country” as the saying goes. Perry was onto something when he spoke to the Teatards on Tax Day 2009 about how different Texas and Texans are.
In retrospect, his only chance to become President of something was that day. As the angry mob shouted out threats of secession, he should not have issued his mealy-mouthed, “half-vast” response to them.
Instead, he should’ve shouted, “Hell yeah!” Damn right! I am going to call a special session IMMEDIATELY dammit and we’re gonna get out of this stinkin’ African republic.” Bring on the drone attacks, D.C. mofos. It’s ON like Donkey Kong!
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Robert Morrow says:
Paul Burka: “Rolling Stone has a lot of readers nationally, but they are not the demographic group that would be supportive of Perry. I think the story will have a lot of readers in Washington, but I don’t think it will move the needle in, say, Iowa.”
I think this article will have big impact. Those readers and opinion makers in Washington DC and elsewhere who read this DO move the needle in Iowa & South Carolina because they determine who gets the 1) MONEY and 2) FAVORABLE PRESS COVERAGE.
And money and favorable press coverage move the needle EVERYWHERE. I remember a few years ago when in Texas a few gay bloggers helped state down a Democratic state senator who supported Prop 2, Texas “Defense of Marriage.” Those bloggers did not live in the district of the conservative Demo who crossed him, but they thrashed him so much he ended up losing in a primary. He later died in a house fire.
Have you seen any favorable press coverage of Perry lately? Ok, Parade Mag – who else? Almost nowhere to be found. I would be stunned to see if any dollars were moving into the Perry campaign or Toomey Super PAC.
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joshua renfro says:
Alright
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