Rick Perry and the Tea Party's 2012 Presidential Platform
Over the next few months, the battle for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination will begin in earnest--and the Tea Party is poised to play a major part in picking the winner. The question now is what kind of candidate they’re looking for.
Rick Perry thinks he has the answer. On Nov. 15, Perry, who was just re-elected governor of Texas after a decade in office, will release Fed Up!, a book calling for a radically limited federal government that discards the last 75 years of national policy and relinquishes most of its responsibilities to the states. An early Tea Party supporter, Perry insisted in an interview with NEWSWEEK that he wouldn't run for president in 2012--even as he made the media rounds in New York. Regardless, his proposals provide the clearest preview to date of a Tea Party presidential platform.
Newsweek thinks Rick has written a tea party manifesto for 2012... the New York Times agrees (link). Excerpt follows...
Mr. Perry said that his book tour, which includes a stop Monday evening on “The Daily Show,” does not signal his own presidential ambitions for 2012. (“Lord willing,” he said, “I will be the governor of the state of Texas.”) He said he is appearing on the Comedy Central program with Jon Stewart because “he’s the No. 2 book reviewer in America, behind Oprah.”
But he said credible Republican presidential candidates must be “a committed fiscal conservative.” He declined to single out any Republican hopefuls by name, but when asked about Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, he suggested that the state’s health care law may be an obstacle.
I will admit he sounds a little like he is running... but I don't think so...
Didn't George W. Bush say roughly the same thing circa 1998?
ReplyDeleteThen along came a TIME magazine cover: "Our next president?"
Then came the announcement ... sans apology to the people of Texas.
Anon, Bush Jr., was running for President regardless and knew whoever was the Lieutenant Governor between Perry and Sharp in 1998 was going to be in the Governor's Mansion.
ReplyDeleteBush Jr., used the TX governorship as a stepping stone for the White House and he had no intention of serving two four-year terms in office.