Governor Perry says he’s got Sarah Palin on his side.
Speaking at a Lions Club meeting Wednesday in Conroe, Perry said Alaska’s retiring governor has committed to campaigning for his re-election.
Perry also said if re-elected, he intends to complete a full four years in office.
His predecessor, George W. Bush made that same statement before vacating the job after being elected president.
–News 8, July 8, 2009
I’ve been wanting to comment on this since I heard it on the news, but other things kept coming up. Since I am sitting here feeling poorly and am bored, might as well take a moment to comment on it now.
Perry may say he “intends” to complete a full four years in office, but a) we’ve heard that before from our governor (Bush) and b) he’d love nothing more than to be a bigger fish than he is already. Though what he actually said is slightly different from the original news story I heard on TV.
“I don’t try to outguess Him,” the governor said. “For me, my intention is obviously to serve out the full four years – whatever distraction might be out there.
“Some people would like to distract me by saying Perry is going to Washington. I have no desire to go to Washington, D.C. I don’t know how many times you have say it or how many times you have to prove it, but Washington has no allure to me.”
–KRGV, July 9, 2009
The “Him” is God, of course. So while Perry himself has no desire to seek the presidency, if God wants him there, well I’m sure he would go. Sound familiar? I think you can see why Palin and Perry get along so well.
In many ways, Perry is much like Palin, though I believe Perry may be slightly more intelligent. They both have high political aspirations (no matter what they say publicly about it), and last year I predicted a Palin/Perry ticket (in either order) in 2012 was something they and many others would like to see happen. I continue to believe this to be true, though I don’t think it will actually happen … not if the Republicans really want to try to take back the Whitehouse. Though I will admit, I would find it highly entertaining to see them running for President and VP. The soundbites alone would be worth the risk of them winning.
Anyway, I don’t know what Perry is thinking by having Palin helping him get re-elected. Sure, she had some popular support in Texas, but I can’t say that is especially true today. Perry isn’t exactly sitting on a pile of limitless unconditional support here right now, and bringing in Palin seems risky. She’s kind of become a train wreck that people can’t stop staring at, and she’s bound to say something stupid. I just don’t know that she’s going to be that helpful for him.
I imagine he feels she will help him siphon off some of the female supporters of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and she might be able to get some of them to change their minds during the primary, but a lot of Texas women support Hutchinson (I’m even considering voting for her), and her first attempts to send letters to said supporters have so far only seemed to annoy them and not change their minds. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that works out as the primary season fires up and Palin starts “helping” Perry more.
Ought to be interesting to watch, at any rate. Worst case scenario is we end up with Perry for another term. Best case scenario, for me, would be some kind of huge scandal involving Palin and Perry … something juicy … and Perry losing to anyone. I’m very much in the Anyone But Perry camp right now, but if he doesn’t win, I wouldn’t get to see him run for an even higher office, and I have to think that would be ever so entertaining. It also might just be enough of a push to make Texas go Democrat again. We weren’t always a “red state” and won’t necessarily continue to be one forever. A little balance between left and right around here would be an improvement.
Also, if anyone is wondering why Perry has been so quick to use the “secession” angle lately, he also has another person running in the Republican primary against him. A secessionist. The guy has a snowball’s chance in Texas of winning, but he is loved by some of the base. Perry knows full well the majority of Texans are quite happy being American citizens and don’t want Texas to become a third world country (not that we aren’t trying to achieve rock bottom status anyway), but if he acts like he thinks secession isn’t some remote and weird option to consider, he might be able to get some of those supporters to vote for him. Ever notice how carefully he tip-toes around the subject? He doesn’t want to aggravate the sane people, but he really would like to have some of the crazy people vote for him, because he may very well need them to win re-election. His primary battle with Hutchinson could end up being close, when all is said and done, and every vote counts, even it it is cast by a crazy person who believes Texas needs to leave the Union (again).
And that’s about enough talk about Texas politics.