Columnist still waiting for Perry to prove him right
Emmett Tyrell, a conservative columnist for the Washington Examiner, ruminates today on the success and failure of his predictions for 2012. I know that he is a conservative columnist because one of his predictions was that liberalism would be dead. He also proclaimed the death of crony capitalism.
And now we get to the heart of the matter:
“So was I always right in 2011?” asks Tyrell. “Unfortunately, not at all. Those who noticed the optimistic tone of my pronouncements regarding Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s chances for the presidency in late spring and early summer must know I was too optimistic by half. In fact, I was dead wrong. Let me be man enough to admit it. Back then, I saw Perry declaring his candidacy by the end of August, and so far, so good. I said he would be very impressive, speaking authoritatively and sonorously on all the important issues of the day to us conservatives.
“By January 2012, he would have swept the field. Only a well-heeled Gov. Mitt Romney would be prepared to challenge him, and perhaps the indefatigable Rep. Ron Paul. It would be a pathetic sight, with a smiling, congenial Perry proceeding to the summer Republican convention and taking the nomination.
“Well, Perry did not sweep into 2012. He tripped repeatedly in the fall after a promising declaration of candidacy. He faltered in debate and had those embarrassing brain seizures in front of the cameras, where all could see. He was a solid conservative, but on some things he was too solid, and he was rarely well-informed.
“Frankly, I came to the conclusion that in the summer sometime he awoke and thought he should be president, so why not make a run for it? His state was rightly being boomed as the economy that works in contrast to California, the economy that had failed, that hated business, that was an economy without a purpose.
“Perry had been good for Texas and could be good for America. The 2012 election was going to be about the economy, and the governor of Texas was the man to take on Obama.
“Actually, he might well be a man to take on Obama, but he has shown himself not to be prepared for the race just yet. It is said of him that in Texas, he never won a debate and never lost a race.
“Yet he is beyond Texas now. Today he is campaigning for the presidency, and he entered the race as though it were a lark. He has shown the capacity to learn on the campaign trail, but I am not sure the trail is long enough. We shall soon see.”
* * * *
If it makes Mr. Tyrell feel any better, a bunch of us Texans were thinking the same thing, the difference being we were terrified that he might win. Still are. I even wrote a 7,000 word article explaining how and why he could do it.
As for liberalism being dead: It’s not possible. It’s like colors. You can’t have blue without yellow and red. If liberalism did not exist, conservatives would have to invent it. But you’re partly right. Liberalism doesn’t exist–in Texas, that is.
ABQ says:
Liberalism exists all over Texas. The problem is that liberals don’t have an organization through which to express their values.
Populism, which is a potential ally of liberalism, instead is expressed through the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.
Until these two strands make common cause against the oligarchy, Texas will sink further into Third World inequality and decay.
Reply »
Colors Reply:
January 2nd, 2012 at 11:07 am
We have no money
We have no status
We have no hang-up in our lives
That’s why you hate us
We are the ones that you discarded long ago
And now we’re back in style, it comes as quite a blow
We don’t admire you
We don’t respect you
We’d like to make it to the top
But we don’t expect to
We just continue to continue out of sight
We are the darkness to your light
And that’s why you need us
“That’s Why You Need Us”–Bevis Frond
Reply »
jpt51 says:
Our only hope for liberalism in Texas is a abhorred reaction to the consequences from the Legislatures gutting the budget to education, failing to fund Medicaid and state parks. It will take a generation to recover from the Ledge’s decision to put Perry’s presidential ambitions ahead of kids, the poor or our state parks.
Reply »
The Mustache That Dare Not Speak Its Name says:
Liberalism exists all over Texas, including among Republican members of the Lege. Just ask any Tea Party activist. He’ll tell you all about the liberals everywhere, including at the movie theater and in the Girl Scouts.
Seriously, that last line was weak. There’s no shortage of liberals in Texas. Just take a walk through any big Texas city (and no, I’m not talking about walking down the Drag in Austin) to see that. Admittedly, liberals are not ascendant in the Texas Legislature, but there’s more to life than that. You should get out more, Paul, it will be good for you.
Reply »
The Mustache That Dare Not Speak Its Name says:
Also, it’s kind of ironic (as Alanis Morrisette might say) that a guy who predicted the victory of Rick Perry would also predict the end of crony capitalism. One of these things is not like the other.
Reply »
Robert Morrow Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 11:55 am
Anybody who simultaneously predicts the RISE of Rick Perry and the DEMISE of crony capitalism has been hanging out backstage with Willie Nelson and taking some mighty big drags on a doobie.
Reply »
South Texan says:
It’s amazing, truly amazing.
Even the hardest-core Republicans I know are saying that Rick Perry has embarrassed not only himself, but also their party and our state. This assessment is more than a typical observation; it is a bipartisan consensus.
The question is, how long will he prolong this suffering–until he runs out of money? Spend, Rick, Spend!
Reply »
jpt51 says:
Tom Tancredo is the kind of candidate the hard right in Iowa is looking for – a, a reactionary racist pandering to the worst in all of us.
Tancredo said of President Barack Obama, “…the greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution of the United States, the greatest threat to our way of life; everything we believe in. The greatest threat to the country that our founding fathers put together is the man that’s sitting in the White House today.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/tom-tancredo-obama-a-bigg_n_640142.html
I don’t think the majority of Americans are prepared to go down that road. Sadly too many supporters of Rick Perry and his ilk are.
Reply »
Jim says:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70976.html
Interesting, although I take it with a grain of salt because the truth is hard to see when everyone in a sinking campaign starts throwing others under the bus.
Reply »
Brown Bess says:
Plenty of newly-converted liberal environmentalists in the gas field – they’re all conservatives who’ve been shat on by industry.
Reply »
JohnBernardBooks says:
as long as you have the pedantic crowd there will be liberals, however they’re day of a free ride is over. When the non-producers make more than the producersa the market corrects the inbalance.
Too many riders and not enough pulling the wagon.
Time for a correction, and it will happen in 2012.
The looters after losing won’t go away they’ll just find a rock to hide under until its dark.
Reply »
Col. Mike Kirby Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 1:58 pm
HAHAHA, spoken like a true teat sucker.
Reply »
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 7:48 pm
exactly, the producers are the teat suckers to morons like you.
Reply »
Col. Mike Kirby Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 11:42 am
Amazing. only in the wingnut hive mind can sitting in mom’s basement eating cheesy-poofs make you a producer. What on earth do you produce besides hot air and fecal matter?
Big O says:
“Frankly, I came to the conclusion that in the summer sometime he awoke and thought he should be president, so why not make a run for it?”
I guess that was about the time that Anita and Rick got the message from the good Lord.
Reply »
Robert Morrow says:
Politico dials in disecting the Oops campaign: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70976.html
This piece is by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, 2 of the biggest media flacks for Rick Perry. I called Jonathan Martin in July with a bunch of damaging personal info on Perry and he pretty much immediately hung up on me and did not want to talk about it.
I think Martin thinks he “discovered” Rick Perry and did not want to hear the ugly reality about his precious find. He should have been talking to Glen Maxey early on and could have gotten himself a huge scoop. Politico, Martin and Maggie Haberman have been the biggest media flacks for Perry the whole way through – never giving you a heads up on the massive flaws of the man/campaign …
While the Huffington Post was disecting every angle of Rick Perry both public policy and private, Politico was writing their stories with vapid “insider hand outs” from the Perry campaign, basically propaganda pieces on how much money they were going to raise.
God bless the Huffington Post; they have done fabulous this election cycle.
And nobody has still done a story on the critical role that Anita Perry has played in this fiasco.
Reply »
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Huffington Post? Thats why no one takes you serious.
Reply »
JohnBernardBooks says:
“Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in the Virginia presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot,
Perry and Gingrich will be on the ballot in Va, despite a democrat filing suit to change the rules in Nov.
Its looking more and more like Perry/Gingrich, when will the first Biden/Ginrich debate take place.
Reply »
Col. Mike Kirby Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 2:06 pm
full of shit once again I see jbb. this is from the very same story you quoted.
Reply »
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Exactly, the two democratic atty generals think Rick Perry should be on the ballot, too. I didn’t know you were a Perry fan.
Reply »
Robert Morrow says:
For anyone who doubts Glen Maxey and what he has to say about Rick Perry, just look at how touchy Perry has been lately about *anything* that has to do with gay issues – military service or Lawrence v. Texas.
Perry knows exactly what Lawrence v. Texas is – it happened on his watch as governor – and he made public comments supporting the Texas law which CRIMINALIZES homosexual sodomy (the Legislature pointedly had changed the law to make heterosexual sodomy legal – a hilarious tweak in my view).
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/rick-perry-appears-to-forget-landmark-civil-rights-case-he-long-opposed.php
Perry’s view on *criminalizing* homosexual sodomy in Texas: “I think our law is appropriate that we have on the books.”
Note Perry did NOT say something like – I think homosexuality is immoral but I really don’t think we should actually *criminalize* it. Perry casts his lot with the sexual totalitarians.
Oh, yes, Perry *opposes* gays in the military, but according to Glen Maxey, he wants to make Liberace the Commander-In-Chief!
Here is Perry’s answer to the bisexual kid about the gays in military question:
“This is about my faith…there are a whole host of sins, homosexuality being one of them, I‘m a sinner and so I’m not gonna be the first one to throw a stone, it’s just like the Boy Scouts…that again is one of those issues that I don’t agree with… i don’t agree that openly gays should serve in the military…Don‘t ask don’t tell was working… I hate the sin but i love the sinner”
The operative phrases: “I‘m a sinner and so I’m not gonna be the first one to throw a stone” and
“i don’t agree that openly gays should serve”
Reply »
John Johnson Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Proof, Robert. Proof, Robert. PROOF, please, Robert.
Reply »
Robert Morrow Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 2:56 pm
You want proof? Here is a candid photo of Rick that is definitive proof:
http://www.facebook.com/messages/?action=read&tid=WVhKgiv2a518vK1g8P9N6w#!/photo.php?fbid=332401656785387&set=a.262588177100069.85195.262123137146573&type=1&theater
Reply »
John Johnson Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 8:57 pm
If something was on Facebook, it’s not there now.
Omron Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 11:37 am
What a surprise–more Morrow “proof” that doesn’t exist…
WUSRPH says:
As big of a Boy Scout Rick was it is strange that he totally forgot their motto when he started to think about running for president:
BE PREPARED!
He was totally UNPREPARED for the race and for the office he was seeking. It is almost a shame…even if it is good for the country that it is turning out this way.
Reply »
judy morris says:
Emmett Tyrell is a big government warmongering statist. I understand why he would get behind a soulmate like Rick Perry.
I guess now that Perry has humiliated himself and Texas on the national stage that Texans and especially the Texas media will warmly and lovingly welcome back their Emperor when he finally limps back to Texas a broken and disgraced man.
Reply »
John Johnson says:
Why I don’t like Rick Perry…let me count the ways:
- Electricity deregulation.
- Using office as training ground for lobbyists.
- Poltical appointments with no relevant knowledge
- Using quesitonable practices and loopholes in
the law for personal gain instead of making
them illegal.
- Using taxpayer money for personal gain.
- Allowing political ads to be run knowing they
contained lies and half truths.
- Allowing money specifically earmarked for state
parks and to be held back and transfered to GF.
- Allowing customer funds specifically earmarked
for people unable to pay their electricity
bills to be transfered to the general fund.
- Embarrassing the State of Texas.
What’s sad about this is the fact that most in the Texas Repub party, if elected to be governor, would do things the same way.
Reply »
Blue Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Er, dedicated accounts have been used to certify the budget for many years, going back well into Democratic control of the Lege. It’s a practice that also has absolutely nothing at all to do with the governor. Want to complain, complain to Dewhurst, Straus, Ogden, and Pitts.
Reply »
John Johnson Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Er…King Perry takes credit for everything in Texas perceived to be good for the last decade…even if he has had nothing to do with it. He, therefore, should also take ownership of the bad. He is the titular head of the Repub controlled legislature, and Dewhurst, Straus, Ogden and Pitts have been nothing more than Perry’s puppets.
And as for you comment about dedicated accounts being used for years to balance the budget…going back to the days of a Dem controlled lege…I will tell you like I always told my kids…”I don’t care what other parents are letting their kids do…”
Reply »
Blue Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Perry is most certainly NOT the head, titular or otherwise, of the Legislature.
John Johnson Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Says you. Name one thing, other than the I-35 corridor and vaccinations that he hasn’t pushed through without problems or protest.
WUSRPH Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 8:21 pm
If you want to find those “to blame” for the way the Leg. handles dedicated accounts you might want to go back to Hobby and certainly to BULLOCK who not only did it while Lt. Gov. (after Hobby) but told the Leg. how to do it while he was State Comptroller.
Reply »
John Johnson Reply:
January 2nd, 2012 at 8:09 am
Thanks for expanding subject, WUSRPH. Wonder who might have the gonads to change the practice…and other stinky ones?
jpt51 Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Amen!
Reply »
WUSRPH says:
Assuming that Rick’s campaign does go under for good, it will be interesting to see who of the old insider/crony/advisor group has to pay the price for the failure. There is no way Perry is going to admit that his lack of preparation and knowledge had anything to do with it. Someone is going to have to take the fall. Delisi? Carney? Toomey? His various mouthpieces? Ted Cruz, the ghost brain whose book stirred up controversy at the very beginning? The fundamentalist ministers who told him how powerful they were? The various reporters and pundits who talked about rocks with names on them and his record? The consultants brought in when his homeboys failed so badly? Maybe even Anita for telling him it was God’s will? Or all of them? I suspect the receptionists and the telephone operators in the governor’s office are going to have a long, long list of “persona non gratis” next year.
Reply »
Endangered Moderate says:
I read the Politico piece this morning and still find it inconceivable that Carney & Co., were as inept as alleged. Say what you will about Perry, but his electoral success speaks for itself. I just can’t imagine the same political instincts which served him so well all these years would suddenly fail him so badly. I still think there is an angle. Maybe he really wants to be VP. Maybe there’s still some path to victory through South Carolina. Maybe he thinks Obama is unbeatable and is running to finish second which qualifies him as the presumptive nominee for 2016. Take your pick. I don’t think Perry is all that smart, but he is cunning. You don’t usually see cunning people fall on their face like this.
Reply »
donuthin says:
Surely you don’t think he set out to appear dumber than a rock, totally selfish, a hypocrite, clueless, naive, dishonest and mentally challenged?
I am ashamed of him and Texans for not seeing through him, myself included.
Reply »
Robert Morrow says:
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson
And that is what I said on this blog in August 2011 as Perry was being coronated as the new president.
The curtain has been pulled back on the Wizard of Oz, and you will think the little guy with the microphone is all powerful.
The Perrybots are as awful and incompetent as advertised- and the fish rots from the head Rick Perry. The sycophant Texas political journalist class could never tell you that ahead of time – they were helping to create the illusion; instead they will only cluck their tongues and do post mortems after the car crash.
Reply »
WUSRPH Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 6:28 pm
But you know some of them have to heartbroken….They had such dreams of how much they would enjoy 4 to 8 years as part of the “White House Press Corps”….
Reply »
Robert Morrow says:
I just got off the phone with a source in New Hampshire – the three in contention there are Romney, Ron Paul and Huntsmann who will do very well.
Gingrich is cratering in New Hampshire just as he is being filleted in Iowa. Gingrich was even losing 5 points over one night in New Hampshire.
Ron Paul campaign is very organized in New Hampshire and is ready to capitalize off of the *even more well oiled* Iowa Paul campaign.
Des Moines Register poll out in 7 minutes … I predict it will show Romney and Paul tied which means poll will win the Iowa caucuses. The DMR poll is extremely well respected.
Reply »
Paul Stekler says:
The irony for Gov. Perry is that if he had sat it out, weighing in eventually with Romney, he would have been a prime choice for the VP slot. Of course hindsight makes all things clearer. Romney isn’t well liked among GOP primary voters, but against a relatively weak field, where the right and the evangelicals are so divided, its always looked like he should win. If he wins Iowa (or Ron Paul wins, so that the caucus is dismissed as irrelevant), then the nomination race may be over. Of course, maybe over the weekend, evangelical voters in Iowa will figure out that dividing their vote makes Mitt win. So who’s next for a wave? Rick Santorum? Could happen.
In the meanwhile, don’t be surprised if the Obama ticket gets switched out, Biden going to State, and Hillary Clinton on the ticket as VP. Excites the base. Excites the media. Gets the D’s more headlines at the expense of the GOP. Otherwise, happy new year Paul.
Reply »
Blue Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 11:43 pm
I dunno. I think we’ve entered a new era of politics where a Presidential ticket can no longer be two white guys.
Reply »
Robert Morrow says:
Highly respected Des Moines Register poll out tonight. I think with Ron Paul’s rock solid organization, we are gonna pull a win out.
I don’t think Santorum has enough zip to be able to pull this thing out, too little too late in my view. My take is Santorum is closing strong but so what – meet my Ron Pauler buddies Tuesday night.
Rick Perry in 5th place.
@DMRegister Iowa Poll Dec 27-30: Romney leads at 24. Paul 22, Santorum 15, Gingrich 12, Perry 11, Bachmann 7. But there’s a twist.
Final 2 days of @DMRegister polling alone: Santorum elbows ahead to 21, Paul in 3rd at 18. Romney remains same at top, 24. Others same order
Reply »
The Mustache That Dare Not Speak Its Name says:
Word for the night – Santorumentum!
Reply »
Blue Reply:
December 31st, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Wait, is that the word for the forceful propulsion shall we say of…well, santorum?
Reply »
WUSRPH says:
If he becomes President a lot of American voters will wind up in santatoriums.
Reply »