Is Perry Establishment, or TEA Party Favorite

The American Thinker had an article yesterday, that hints at "the troubles" coming our way, but posits a fairly optimistic outcome for Elections 2012. The title of the article is What Liberals Fear More than Obama Losing, by Geoffrey P. Hunt, whose opening paragraph held much promise:

The left are now wringing their hands fearing their agenda is overripe, blaming everyone else for their own spoiled pickling. While Obama's sinking prospects for re-election are disquieting, the real source of liberals' despair is their sudden, unexpected realization that the progressive agenda is dead in its tracks and will likely be in full retreat after 2012.

Good so far, but then it devolves into puff piece for Rick Perry.  I say puff piece because everyone knows campaign rhetoric is designed more to rally the base than to actually indicate what a candidate would really do if elected.

The tipping point provoking the libs' worst nightmare was contained in Rick Perry's speech announcing his candidacy to be the Republican nominee for president. Perry proclaimed his mission was not to make government more accountable, effective, or efficient -- that's standard issue bromide from populist reformers. No, Perry was bold enough, and as his critics will assert reckless, to suggest government should be irrelevant -- his words "as inconsequential to your lives as possible."

Frankly, I don't like being railroaded into selecting someone before I can take the measure of the man (or woman, because these days a lot of women are showing more gumption than the men), and this is feeling like 2000 all over again. That year, George Bush announced, and seeming took a victory lap before being nominated by acclimation. His talk of being a "compassionate conservative" had heads scratching all over. You see, those of us who call ourselves conservative think of ourselves as truly compassionate. We want to teach all men to fish, whereas the phony compassion of liberalism just wants to give people a fish and let it go. True compassion however, takes more time and effort, and requires a change in the other persons heart, so I can understand liberals disdain for it. In any case, we just thought it was a marketing ploy, and a clever one at that. Shrewd, Mr. Rove, very shrewd. But it turned out that "compassionate conservatism" was actually code for "more of the same liberalism."  What kept us voting for Bush was the thought of AlGore, of John Kerry (he served in Vietnam) was so off putting, that we held our collective nose and voted for him anyway.

In any case, since he is in the race, let's have a look at Rick Perry. His official campaign website is here. The things Rick Perry is saying here mostly seem to be things that I can live with. Perry vows to repeal ObamaCare, cut spending, and cut taxes. What I don't see is that he would get rid of any departments, no matter how Unconstitutional those departments may be. For example, the Department of Education gives out billions for things that are not even on the Congress's to-do list. Then there are departments like DHS. DHS, in Obama's hands threatens to become a secret police force. We don't (or didn't) have those sorts of things in America. And what about repealing the unPatriot Act?  What about eliminating thousands of regulations that stifle business and job creation every day?  No mention of any of that.

On the other side, if Jeff Greenfield's scare mongering is any indication, I could live with Top 10 Things Governor Rick Perry Doesn't Want You to Know About Him. Of course, that is just some red meat thrown at the left, so I discount a lot of what I read there. But if what a lot of the MSM is saying and writing about him may not be true, they have definitely telegraphed that this guy is both electable, and has truly conservative ideas. They are afraid of Rick Perry, which elevates him in my eyes.

What about Rick Perry's record on guns? You can tell a lot about a politician's position on other issues by his position on guns. Perry apparently has a concealed carry license, but then reputedly so do Senators Boxer and Schumer. That doesn't mean they are all for you having a gun. Keep in mind the liberals ability to simultaneously hold two opposing points of view.  Rick Perry opposed the recent efforts of the ATF to illegally grab more power by making the four Southwestern States report multiple sales of long guns to the Fed. Good. He has reportedly stated that if a person has a concealed carry license, he should be allowed to carry pretty much anywhere. Not bad. Licensing concealed carry is a good first step (as the Left always says.) In the generational culture war to keep our guns and bear them, we eventually want Constitutional carry everywhere.

In today's American Thinker, J. Robert Smith has an article which says that Romney plans to scare seniors about Social Security and Medicare. But Perry's plans, as I understand them now, seem quite modest. If we had done them back in 2004, we might not have had the current recession, or it might not have been as bad as it has been.

The primary election season is designed to put the candidates in the fire, and see if they survive. It needs to be as spread out as possible. As voters, we need the time to ask questions, and get answers, assuming the candidate doesn't simply lie to the nation. If Perry scares the Dems, that is just fine. If he scares the so called Repub establishment, that is good too.  The debt ceiling fiasco shows that the establishment Republicans are not listening to the voters either.  Perhaps a Perry candidacy is the two by four we need to smack them up beside the head.