A Different Kind of Texan (Wright in New Yorker re: Perry)

[struggle4progress]

... Non-Texans are bound to look at Perry and see a reprise of Bush’s swagger and twang. In Texas, however, the two men are seen as very different. Bush has money, a famous name, and two Ivy League degrees. Perry has none of those assets. Bush was a businessman; Perry was a cotton farmer. When Bush was governor, Democrats were still a factor in Texas politics, and he was notably bipartisan; under Perry, the two relevant parties are the Republican Party and the Tea Party. He leans toward the radicals ...

Perry’s immediate aggressiveness as a Presidential candidate—in the first days of his campaign, he has declared that it would be “treasonous” for the Federal Reserve to “print more money,” and has suggested that U.S. servicemen don’t respect President Barack Obama—did not surprise Texans. He is among the toughest campaigners the state has ever seen. He specializes in stirring extremist passions, which helps him in primaries. Several times, he has aired the possibility that Texas might secede from the Union, claiming that the state can do so under the annexation agreement of 1845. Every Texas schoolchild knows that this is inaccurate: Texas has the right only to split itself into five states. In any case, it’s an odd position for a Presidential candidate ...

Perry would like to return the country to an idealized past—a time when government was an invisible presence. When he appeared on “The Daily Show” last year, to promote his book “Fed Up: Our Fight to Save America from Washington,” Jon Stewart asked him when Washington had gone “off the rails.” “About a century ago,” Perry said. He blamed Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive movement, which promoted the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, sanctioning a federal income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment, mandating direct election of U.S. senators rather than their selection by state legislators ...

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/08/29/110829taco_talk_wright

[Taverner]

1. Perry is a theocrat

Don't let a theocrat become president