RICK PERRY STILL IN THE GAME…

Week in Review: Sept. 26-Oct. 1

 

This week on the trail:

Gov. Perry spent the week meeting voters and fundraising in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, and also made stops throughout Tennessee, and in West Virginia and New Hampshire. He spoke at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation luncheon in Atlanta and held a town hall meeting in Derry, NH where he signed the Thomson Presidential Pledge, reiterating his commitment to advancing the cause of fiscal conservatism. On Saturday, the governor was in New Hampshire to speak at an economic forum in Hampton and the Manchester Chili Fest.

 

Key endorsements:

Six Republican Agriculture Commissioners: Represents two-thirds of the nation’s elected Republican agriculture commissioners

http://www.rickperry.org/news/two-thirds-of-elected-republican-agriculture-commissioners-endorse-rick-perry-for-president/

 

Forty Maryland Republican legislators and party leaders: “Rick Perry is the candidate who not only can lead our party to victory in 2012 – he’s the candidate who will get America working again,” said State Senator Chris Shank. “With more than a million jobs gained in Texas on his watch, Gov. Perry’s record proves that the conservative philosophy works.”

http://www.rickperry.org/news/40-maryland-gop-legislators-and-leaders-endorse-rick-perry-for-president/

 

Gov. Perry Appears on CNBC Squawk Box:

Gov. Perry interviewed with Gov. Rick Scott, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Tyler Mathison on CNBC’s Squawk Box where he discussed important fiscal issues, social security, border security and immigration, and reiterated his priorities for getting America working again.

View the full interview at http://www.cnbc.com/id/44714589.

 

Speaks at Georgia Public Policy Foundation; Interviews with Fox News’ Carl Cameron:

On Friday, Gov. Perry spoke at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation where he touted his record on low taxes, medical lawsuit reforms and environmental policies that have cleaned the air while protecting jobs. He also interviewed with Fox News’ Carl Cameron, discussing issues including his record on immigration and border security, and the importance of fixing tax and regulation policies so we can create the jobs that will get America working again.

To view the governor’s interview with Carl Cameron, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msy_zBxBLcs.

 

Signs Thomson Presidential Pledge; Holds Town Hall in Derry, New Hampshire:

Also on Friday, Gov. Perry signed the Thomson Presidential Pledge, committing to commit to cut taxes, fees and regulations; cut spending and reduce the national debt; cut the size ofgovernment at all levels; secure the nation’s borders; make our nation energy independent within eight years; and uphold, follow and protect the United States Constitution. He then took questions from participants regarding several issues including Social Security, climate change and immigration.

To view the entire town hall event, including signing of the Thomson Presidential Pledge and questions from the crowd, please visit http://tinyurl.com/3aunkop (The governor’s remarks begin at 11:12 and questions begin at 18:40)

 

Mitt Romney’s Flip-flops:

Gov. Mitt Romney’s has a record of supporting the stimulus, government-mandated health care, and federal intervention into schools – but when his liberal positions are discovered, he flips with ease.

Stimulus: http://www.rickperry.org/news/romneys-stimu-flop/

Race to the Top: http://www.rickperry.org/news/mitt-romneys-race-to-the-flop/

Romneycare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GfdHx9_7rg&

 

Perry on securing the border, combating illegal immigration:

Gov. Perry has long advocated thousands more federal troops, strategic fencing, border cameras, and aerial surveillance and intelligence gathering in the face of the federal government’s failure to secure the border. Perry and Texas lawmakers have spent $400 million state dollars to boost border security and law enforcement. Healso signed legislation requiring Texans to provide an ID in order to vote and banning illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses, and fought to ban sanctuary cities and impose criminal penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

 

The truth about college tuition:

In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed a bill providing all Texas high school graduates who have lived in Texas for three years to pay in state tuition – it passed with only 4 dissenting votes and with no fiscal impact to Texas taxpayers. Like other 3+ year Texas residents, undocumented students pay tuition and they must also be working towards U.S. citizenship. This is a state issue and in Texas, lawmakers decided that it is better for our state to allow these students to pay for higher education while pursuing citizenship rather than becoming a burden on society.

 

Gov. Perry knows that until the federal government secures the border, states from California to Maine will be forced take action to deal with the impact of a porous border and illegal immigration.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203405504576600741483085196.html

PERRYAMTexas A&M

Texas Gov. Rick Perry poses for a school-yearbook photo while an upperclassman at Texas A&M University, in the uniform he wore as a member of the Corps of Cadets, during his time. He graduated in 1972.

By MIGUEL BUSTILLO

Now that Rick Perry is a presidential contender, Americans are trying to get a handle on the Texas governor’s personal mix of aw-shucks conservatism and swashbuckling anti-Washington rhetoric.

But to folks in Texas, a simple fact has always made the governor readily understood: He’s an Aggie.

Mr. Perry is a proud 1972 graduate of Texas A&M University, a school whose peculiar pageantry and moral traditionalism stand out even in the colorful and conservative Lone Star State. Its students’ nickname, “Aggies,” is derived from the “agriculture and mechanical” abbreviated by A&M.

The governor isn’t just any alumnus, but a former “yell leader,” a male cheerleading position that is considered the ultimate expression of Aggie school spirit. He also belonged to the Corps of Cadets, a Reserve Officers Training Corps program that prepares students for post-graduate military commissions.

“Rick Perry the yell leader, Rick Perry the [commissioner of] agriculture, Rick Perry the governor—what you see is what you get,” said Art Saldaña, a college friend and fellow cadet-corps member. “He hasn’t changed a whole lot. He’s the same guy I knew at A&M.”

A spokesman for Mr. Perry’s campaign said A&M helped shape the governor’s values and remains a vital part of his identity.

Indeed, Mr. Perry learned during his college years that leadership often involves charm and charisma more than displays of dazzling intellect, and that surviving a trial by fire—in his case, the hazing underclassman endured in the corps—strengthens one’s character. Those skills subsequently served him well in a lengthy career in politics that includes the longest gubernatorial tenure in Texas history.

When Mr. Perry arrived in 1968 on the College Station campus, after graduating from a high-school class of 13 in Paint Creek, the nation was roiled by Vietnam War protests and the rise of the hippie counterculture.

A&M was far removed from those turbulent currents; it was still largely a place where rural families sent boys to become men and train for careers in ranching or engineering. (Women began enrolling at A&M in the early 1960s, though they weren’t allowed in the student military ranks until 1973.)

Upperclassmen gave Mr. Perry an unflattering buzz cut like those of other freshmen cadets, known as “fish,” and was surrounded by young men who looked and thought the way he did. “There might have been a few liberals, but we didn’t discuss them in polite company,” recalled Mike Cunningham, who was a fellow cadet.

By his own admission, Mr. Perry was no scholar. He graduated with a 2.2 grade-point average. A transcript leaked to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during his winning campaign for lieutenant governor in 1998 shows he received an F in organic chemistry and D’s in such classes as principles of economics, Shakespeare and “Feeds and Feeding.”

During a Sept. 14 speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Mr. Perry acknowledged struggling with the dueling demands of school and military drills, and recalled downsizing his dream of becoming a veterinarian to major in animal science after a frank talk with a school dean. “He said, ‘Son, I am looking at your transcript—you want to be an animal-science major,’ ” Mr. Perry told the audience.

Yet he learned an important lesson that eventually led him into public life, after a stint flying cargo planes in the Air Force: He had a way with people. He parlayed his popularity into the student government position of social secretary.

“I obviously wasn’t going to do it academically. I wasn’t going to do it athletically. But politics requires people skills, which is something I had,” Mr. Perry said in interview with the Abilene-Reporter News in 1989.

Former classmates said Mr. Perry’s popularity was boosted by several daring pranks he pulled on upperclassmen, including one his campaign recently confirmed: The young Mr. Perry placed live blackbirds in a student’s closet to create a putrid stink during a vacation break.

Such shenanigans were still common when Mr. Perry was on campus, but were slowly being rooted out by then-A&M president James Earl Rudder, a World War II hero. He successfully pushed to modernize the school to combat dwindling attendance.

” ‘All male, all military’ was the motto of the old Army Aggies, who exercised a great influence,” said historian Thomas M. Hatfield, who wrote a biography of Mr. Rudder.

Still, many A&M alums warmly describe the campus as a place where a man’s worth was measured honestly.

“I wouldn’t have had a chance at a school like [Southern Methodist University], with its fraternities, where who your father was and what kind of car you drove mattered,” said 1968 graduate Henry Cisneros, who later served as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. “At A&M, none of that stuff mattered: it was all about how you performed on the drill field and in the classroom.”

The cadet corps’ harsher customs eventually fell by the wayside, but hazing was routine during Mr. Perry’s era and perseverance was demanded of participants. In the fall 1968 semester, 31.5% of Mr. Perry’s fellow “fish” cadets dropped out of the corps, along with 14.8% of sophomores, according to school records.

During his Liberty University speech, Mr. Perry recalled that cadet upperclassmen would look for minor infractions, such as a scratch on a belt buckle. “They told us when they found those—which was on a regular basis—to drop down and give them 72” push-ups, in honor of their graduating year.

Those shared experiences are why many fellow cadets, including a few Democrats, are supporting Mr. Perry’s presidential bid. “Some of my yellow-dog Democrat friends won’t like it, but, yeah, I will vote for Rick,” said former cadet corps classmate Kirk Hawkins, now a lawyer in San Angelo. “He’s from West Texas. And, of course, he’s an Aggie.”

Write to Miguel Bustillo at miguel.bustillo@wsj.com

 

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