Since I only make these sort of political posts once a year, here is the mandatory disclaimer:
This post is not to advocate any view or anything of the sort. This is not an invitation of similar emails. For my purpose with this site, it is unproductive to make these sorts of posts which is why you don’t see them often.
Most excellent Malstrom:
I hesitated to write you for my subject does not concern video-games, though I suppose in some respects I am a “gamer”. Personally, I find the Wii Fit to be an excellent substitute for my afternoon constitutional. But given your proclivities for writing on matters political, and your residence in the state of Texas, I thought it prudent to enlist your opinion on the upcoming Republican Party nomination, and in particular the aspirations of Mr. Perry, whose service as governor of your fine state may have provided you with some useful insight. In short, do you think he shall throw his hat in, would he stand a chance at being nominated, and do you think he would make an able chief executive? Your thoughts on this subject would be most welcome. Though some of articles in the past proved to be inaccurate, I found them to be thrilling reads, an opinion no doubt shared by many.
Rick Perry is southern fried Romney. He was a Democrat who ran the ‘Texans for Al Gore for President’ campaign. He became a Republican because Karl Rove recruited him, and he was conditioned to become George W. Bush’s running mate when he ran for governor in 1994. Since Bush became president in 2000, Perry has remained governor. Keep in mind that the Texas governor is the weakest governorship. The Lieutenant Governor has more power than than the Governor does.
Texas and, indeed the Sunbelt, is undergoing an economic transformation of the scale that India or South Korea is going through. Texas is the fastest growing state in the United States, the second strongest economic state (second to California but will eventually surpass it), and Texas’s economic output is comparable to India.
Political transformations lag behind economic transformations. It is a political myth that the Sunbelt or Texas is a Republican stronghold. Texas was controlled by the Democrat Party for 130 years. Only in 2002 did this hold break. No matter who or what the political party is, it is absurd that it remain in consecutive control for a century. That is too much power for anyone. The Soviet Union would be impressed of such power.
Allow me to frame it not as Democrats versus Republicans but people versus Political Machines. A political machine can only exist when people are kept poor and uneducated. The aftermath of the Civil War created economic conditions for political machines to thrive. Hitler could only rise from an economically destroyed Berlin after World War I. While no Hitler appeared from the devastated Sunbelt, you did have these hated political machines that ruled for a century or more. Laws are passed to stop something that would normally occur. The segregation laws were to stop what would have occurred naturally: integration, intermarriage, and all. But it also did something else. The poor, uneducated farmer, should he complain about his poverty to the political machine, would be told, “But you aren’t the lowest class. Look at the blacks.” It was a way for the political machine to control people, and keep people poor and forever voting for the political machine. This is the truth of the ‘Solid South’.
World War 2 trumped the political machines. And after World War 2, and beginning in the 50s and 60s, a fundamental economic transformation gained momentum. More and more businesses were finding it attractive to relocate because the labor was cheap, the land was cheap, and the taxes were cheap. Some people (often those who find themselves now in declining states) cannot emotionally accept this economic transformation and try to wave it away by saying ‘air conditioning’. But New Orleans, southern California, and Nevada rose economically before ‘air conditioning’ as well.
Lately, people have wondered how these engineers spring out of nowhere from places like India. My grandparents never had beyond a second grade education. But their children grew up to become engineers of every sort (nuclear, computer, wireless technology, you name it). Engineers are grown to escape the foul taste of poverty. I’ve been very curious why American academics are flying across the world to witness ‘farmers becoming computer engineers’ where all they would have to do is go to the Sunbelt in their own nation. The point is that there is dramatic economic transformation underway and a rebellion against the political machines who kept people down for so long.
Ronald Reagan owes his political life to Texas. In the 1976 primary, defying all the polls, Texas went to Reagan which allowed him to rebound. Reagan was the first Republican president Texas ever voted for. The reason why is because he was not a machine candidate. And this is a trend we’ll keep seeing.
In 1994, George W. Bush rode the Republican wave that swept through the Sunbelt. Today, George W. Bush could not get elected in Texas. But he was at the right place, at the right time, as more and more Texans were against the political machine that has smothered the state for over a hundred years. Bush imitated Reagan in form by doing things like buying that ranch (which he “loved” so much that he sold it after being President. It was all PR).
It became clear that Republicans were wanting to create a ‘political machine’ just like the Democrats. This is why Republicans lost Congress in 2006. Karl Rove had the master plan to try to recreate the McKinley political machine. People told him to shove it. Strangely, no one reported this as a reason for the change in Congress where all data shows it. Instead, I heard reports, which had no data to support it, saying the reason was due to ‘changing demographics’. Note that only after a few years after the electorate in these areas replaced the Republican with a Democrat, in order to show Republicans they could not create a political machine on them, they just as effortlessly replaced those Democrats with Republicans creating a massive sweep in 2010 imitating 1994. What also is not being reported is that heavily Hispanic districts, such as those in Texas, decided to throw out their Democrat representative and insert a Republican representative. Why? Because those Hispanic districts recognize they are being used to create a political machine, and the machine’s interest is only to keep them poor and uneducated. Well, screw them.
Rick Perry is very much a machine candidate. He is easily controlled by others. The reason why you’ll detect so much hostility against Perry from Texans is because of his involvement in the Trans Continental Corridor.
In order to build this ‘super highway’, the government would have to seize land from the land owners. To this day, I will not bring up Perry’s name in any way should I be near these people. The intense anger from people still boils from someone who intended to take your land. The reason why many people don’t know about the ‘Trans Corridor’ is because Texans killed it.
Above: Coincidence? Around the time of farmers fighting Perry not to take their land to build his superhighway, a mysterious arsonist burns down the Governor’s mansion.
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The only reason why Perry is still governor is because of the atrociousness of the other candidates and political machines trying to insert their candidate. For example, in 2010, Dick Cheney comes in and says, “Perry has had enough time as governor,” and says it is Senator Hutchison’s “turn” to be governor. What the hell is this? The purpose of elections is not for the political class to take ‘turns’. Perry won against Hutchison, who was backed by Karl Rove, because voting for Perry then was voting against the political machine.
Rick Perry also owes his political life to Sarah Palin who campaigned for him. Perry was the first politician Palin endorsed after she resigned as governor. Palin’s endorsement was a big factor in Perry not losing the primary. And in the general election, the Democrat candidate ended up being a moron who spent all the campaign money early.
So to answer your question, Texans do not like Perry. What is going on is that both political parties are not treating a place like Texas as a place of people. They are treating it as if they are entitled to create a political machine. The Republicans think, “Democrats had a political machine here for 130 years! Now we get it.” But the people are resisting this which is why the GOP dislikes the Sunbelt. They refuse to be controlled and to go along with their machine candidates. All you need to know about Perry is that he has tremendous baggage is controlled by global money-bags. Keep in mind that Texas politics tends to be one of the most corrupt and dirty in the nation.
So why is Perry being pushed forward all of a sudden? That’s easy. The answer requires a quick look at the Republican political machine.
Republican Political Machine
The origins of the Republican Political Machine go back to the McKinley presidency (1896-1904). Aligning the Industrial North and waging and winning a quick, decisive war in the Spanish-American War, the Modern Republican Political Machine was born. The origin of the idea of the Republicans as elitists, rich, and privileged came from the McKinley machine (note that Karl Rove is a huge fan of McKinley and sought to use W. Bush to recreate this machine). The candidate who competed against McKinley was the famous ‘Cross of Gold’ populist, Bryan. The Republican Political Machine was established against populism and sees populism as its enemy. Only people of privilege, rank, wealth, and heritage would be allowed to go anywhere in this Republican Political Machine.
The political machine had its first crisis in 1923 when Harding died in office and Coolidge assumed the presidency. Coolidge’s resume was that he was a small time mayor who became governor for only a couple of years before joining a presidential ticket as a Vice President candidate. Coolidge cut the marginal tax rate from 73% to 25% which created an economic boom that lasted until 1929.
The machine was happy to get rid of Coolidge and replaced him with Herbert Hoover. Hoover, controlled by various interests, passed the Smoot Hawley tariff (harming international trade), raised corporate taxes by 15%, and raised taxes from 25% to 63%. Coolidge remarked that Hoover, his Commerce Secretary was “for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice- all of it bad.”
With the Great Depression, the Democrat Party knitted together various political machines to make the New Deal coalition. What is noteworthy here is that despite the fortunes collapsing for the Republican party, the same McKinley political machine was still in control. They didn’t seem to care if they lost every election. The focus was the machine remaining in control of the party. In the twentieth century, only foreign policy situations would see the Republican machine candidate win with Eisenhower (Korean War) and Nixon (Vietnam War).
The last major anti-machine candidate was Reagan who ran against both sitting Republican and Democrat presidents. When he ran against Ford in 1976, the wrath of the Republican Political Machine fell on his head and, to this day, hasn’t ceased. Normally, the Republican Political Machine always nominates the ‘runner up’ to the primary four years ago. As the runner-up to Nixon in 1968 (third place, Reagan ran a ‘stop Nixon’ campaign) and nearly beating Ford in 1976, clearly Reagan would qualify as the ‘runner up’ in 1980. But apparently the ‘runner up’ rule didn’t apply to populist candidates.
The machine candidate who was supposed to win the Republican Primary in 1980 was George H. Bush. Reagan sensed Bush was being controlled by others and sensed the primary process was trying to be rigged. So he invited Bush to a one on one debate, which Bush agreed, and then Reagan invited the other primary candidates. This was the result:
Historically, this clip has been mis-characterized as to mean, “This was where Reagan showed he had fire in his belly…” But that is not the correct context of the clip. The correct context is a political machine trying to rig events. People are clapping at the furious Reagan not as celebration of him but because of the defiance of the machine. At the end of the clip, all the people there we see again. You can see Bob Dole there, not as fossilized as he would be in 1996, but he becomes the machine candidate in that time. Note that everyone is laughing except for old man Bush.
When Reagan got the nomination, the Party Vice Chair Crisp walked out on the convention. Anderson, one of the primary candidates, decided to launch a third party candidacy to pull the rug from Reagan. The Republican Party Machine however knew Reagan was old (69 in 1980). By placing Bush as VP, Baker as Chief of Staff, among others, the machine would have a shadow government ready to assume control once Reagan died in office or his term was over.
Since 1988, the Republican Political Machine has made six nominations. Five were to the hereditary (VP H. Bush to George W. Bush, McCain as a son to a four star admiral) and Dole who earned his ‘privilege’ defending the Ford and Nixon administrations. It appears the machine was content for Dole to lose so they could create a restoration of the Bushes with W (who was already governor of Texas at the time). It is highly probable the machine is trying to find a candidate to lose in 2012 so it can run Jeb Bush in 2016 as another restoration of the Bushes.
I want you to picture this in your mind. During the 1980s campaign, Reagan would do the speech and people would go ‘rah rah’. Then Reagan would leave and the VP on the ticket, H. Bush would speak. The swelling crowds vanished as people left. Both of Bush’s sons, W. Bush and Jeb Bush, were standing in the background watching all this. Seeing their father left humiliated like this has left a personal loathing in the Bush sons over Reagan.
Answer to the Emailer’s Question
Now after saying all the above can I appropriately answer your question. The Republican Political Machine is in its deepest crisis ever. Obama was not supposed to have nose-dived so rapidly. I suspect the plan was to run the ‘runner-up’, Romney, and allow him to lose so another ‘Bush restoration’ could be made with Jeb Bush in 2016.
The crisis revolves around another ‘anti-machine populist politician’. While the machine found Reagan to be an anathema, he was at least a Hollywood star. The ‘crisis’ was a common waitress and once cleaned toilets. How horrendous this is to the privileged class. Even should she be nominated and win, there can be no shadow government for the machine as there was with Reagan. At 47, the ‘crisis’ would have a long shadow of influence to come. During the 2010 campaign, the political machine began to panic about the specific geographic locations of candidates she was spending time campaigning… all of which were early 2012 primary states. And by helping politicians in these states get elected, they would be paying her back in 2012.
Ever since the 2010 elections, the mission of the Republican political machine has been to ‘stop that damn woman’. The plan was to still keep Romney as the inevitable nominee but to flood the race with all these conservative candidates to dilute the vote and give the primary to Romney. Romney took off for the summer because he was so sure this would work. It wasn’t working quite the way the machine thought. So next, they began pushing Michelle Bachman as the inevitable VP candidate to Romney. It was pretty transparent how suddenly Bachman and Romney began complimenting one another. Bachman is not who she appears to be and is a quintessential machine candidate. But that doesn’t appear to be working either. The political machine has been desperately looking around, going from candidate to candidate, to get someone to stop ‘that damn woman’. They’ve been trying to get NJ governor Chris Christie into the race for that reason. Lately, though, they have been focusing on Rick Perry to take that role. This is why you are seeing Perry pushed forward all of a sudden. But Perry couldn’t win re-election in Texas without ‘that damn woman’. It is extremely doubtful he’d perform well against her.
It is important to remember there are more states than Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. This will be a very fierce primary battle and could go on throughout the majority of the states. Consider: Could Romney perform well in the Western states? How about in the southern states? Considering how weak his current performance is in the Northeast, it is doubtful.
It will be much tougher for the candidate to win the Republican nomination than it will be to win the General Election, whoever that candidate may be. Since FDR, no Democrat President (aside from Bill Clinton) has won re-election. And Obama is no Bill Clinton.
For fun, let’s go through these candidates specifically:
Bachmann
A toxic candidate. In her district, Bachmann received significant less vote percentage than Mc-Cain got in 2008. You have to go back a hundred years or so to find a House member who went to become President. She isn’t running for president but for vice president. There has already been agreements she will be the VP on a Romney ticket.
Bachmann has tons of baggage, and I can see why the House leadership kept her in distance. She has financial scandals. She belongs to a church that declares the Pope to be the Anti-Christ. Her organizations are sloppily run. She makes tons of gaffes. If it were not her allegiance to the Republican party machine, she’d be laughed out of the race.
Cain
He lost an election, so now he runs for president? WTF? His campaign is already imploding. He’ll be gone soon.
It makes sense to win some election first before you run for president.
Gingrich
He is in his 70s and actually looks older. No stamina for a campaign. Already took the wrong side of many issues. Too much personal (extramarital affairs) and political (House Battle of the mid 90s) baggage. He’s already gone.
Huckabee
Huckabee didn’t enter the race for various reasons (such as having a well paying talk show job, political baggage of criminals he paroled committing crimes again, etc).
Most importantly, Huckabee doesn’t want to get beat by the girl.
Huntsman
Worked in the Obama administration as ambassador to China. No Republican primary voter will go for that.
Ron Paul
The only reason he is running is so he can sell more books. If someone like Ron Paul was serious, he would have run for governor of Texas or another statewide position instead of sitting in an uncontested farming district while people like W. Bush, came from nowhere in 94, to become governor and then president.
Pawlenty
A yawner. Will drop out early due to lack of money.
Sanctorum
Another yawner. He lost a state-wide race. How can he expect to win a nation wide race? Will drop out early due to lack of money.
Romney
The machine candidate of choice. But Romney is extraordinarily weak. He won only one state wide election and refused to run again (because he knew he’d lose). Look how poorly Romney performed in the 2008 primaries (which had weak candidates such as McCain and Huckabee). He won like only one or two states in the 2008 primaries despite his ‘money advantage’.
While Romney has more money than the other candidates, it hasn’t been reported that his fundraising has been coming in below what was expected. The big GOP donors haven’t committed yet and are possibly awaiting ‘that damned woman’.
The regional issues with Romney (him being from Massachusetts) makes him a no-go in the West and South. If that wasn’t enough to kill him, it would be Romneycare. Romneycare, alone, ensures Romney never, ever gets the nomination. If he did, the GOP would split into a third party.
Trump
Now this is an interesting one. I think he already pulled out of the race, but he certainly did have his fun. Businessmen don’t like politics. Why on Earth would Trump go around, badgering, and then demanding to see the birth certificate?
It is highly probable that Trump is working with ‘that damn woman’. Both have publicly expressed support and admiration for one another. They made it a point to be seen together eating a pizza in public.
Trump demanding to see the birth certificate actually got Obama to produce it. Perhaps it was a plan for Obama to produce the birth certificate as a silver bullet in the 2012 campaign. The ‘Crisis’ supporters were demanding why she didn’t go after the birth certificate issue. Perhaps ‘that damned woman’ teamed up with Trump and had him do it for her to diffuse the issue.
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Those were the Declared Candidates. So let us look at the Undeclared Candidates…
(Jeb) Bush
He won’t run because, like Huckabee, he’s afraid he’ll be beat by the girl. I really want Jeb Bush to run because when he loses, we’d be done with the Bushes forever. He is planning for a 2016 run after a Romney loss in 2012.
Christie
Desperate to stop the ‘crisis’, the machine is trying to get Chrisie into the race. But Christie wouldn’t have a chance with the Republican primary voters with his support for the ‘victory mosque’ in New York to his support for gun control.
Perry
I have met him various times. At one time, when everyone was engaged in a Pledge of Allegiance, Perry would use that time when cameras were not on him to play with his hair and make sure not a strand was out of place. I kid you not.
After a hurricane in 2008, once turning on the TV running by a gas generator in my backyard (still had no electricity), I’m looking at the local news where it shows rescue teams in the flooded areas. And then, here comes Perry dressed ridiculously like Indiana Jones (minus the whip) as if he, personally, was going on an expedition through the wilderness.
Take it from someone who has met him personally. Perry is a plastic man.
The same machine apparatus that created and thrust W. Bush onto the national stage is working now behind Perry. Perry really doesn’t want to run. He just bought some extra land on his ranch. But you can see how the machine trotted him out, not so recently, as a ‘trial’ for him to give a speech or two. Since Romney is going to implode, the machine may be trying to get Perry as an alternative.
Perry is so weak that he won’t win Texas in the Republican presidential primary. The only reason why he won the gubernatorial primary was because of…
‘That Damn Woman’
Both political machines have tried to flatter her, to offer her various jobs, and then have already used their heavy artillery to get rid of her. Despite all this, she will be announcing in the next couple of weeks.
