Former Texas governor says “no room” for “nativist appeals” in GOP race
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ST. LOUIS (CFP) — Four months before the first vote is cast, former Texas Governor Rick Perry has suspended his campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination — but not before taking a veiled blast at front-runner Donald Trump over his negative comments about Latino immigrants.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry
“We cannot indulge nativist appeals that divide the nation further,” Perry said, without mentioning Trump by name. “There is no room for debate that denigrates certain people based on their heritage or their origin.”
“We can secure the border of this country and reform our immigration system without inflammatory rhetoric … Demeaning people of Hispanic heritage is not just ignorant, it betrays the example of Christ.”
Perry, who has languished near the bottom of the polls in the crowded GOP field, announced the end of his campaign September 11 in an appearance before the Eagle Forum, a conservative women’s group. The decision to drop out came after news reports that his campaign no longer had enough money to pay staff.
Saying “some things have become clear to me,” Perry went on to laud what he termed “a tremendous field of candidates.”
“I step aside knowing our party’s in good hands as long as we listen to the grassroots, listen to the cause of conservatism,” he said.
Perry, 65, a former Air Force officer who was a cotton farmer in West Texas before getting into politics, left office in January after serving 14 years as governor, the longest tenure in the state’s history.
This was his second try for the White House. He ran in 2012, entering the campaign as one of the favorites only to see his stock plummet after a series of of gaffes, including a moment in a debate when he could not remember the name of a federal agency he had previously pledged to abolish. He later blamed his faltering performance on lack of preparation and the aftereffects of back surgery.
Perry had hoped for political redemption in the 2016 race, but his candidacy never caught fire in the polls. He was one of the most outspoken critics of Trump, particularly over his assertions that many illegal migrants from Mexico were criminals.
Perry, the longest-serving governor in Texas history, touts his executive experience in campaign kickoff
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ADDISON, Texas (CFP) — Charging that Americans “are at the end of an era of failed leadership,” former Texas Governor Rick Perry launched his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination by touting his experience as the longest-serving governor in the history of the Lone Star State.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry
“Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. And we will not find the kind of leadership needed to revitalize the country by looking to the political class in Washington,” Perry said at his campaign kickoff at an airport in Addison, a Dallas suburb.
“I have been tested. I have led the most successful state in America. I have dealt with crisis after crisis, from the disintegration of a space shuttle to hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, to the crisis at the border and the first diagnosis of Ebola in America.”
Perry, 65, a former Air Force officer who was a cotton farmer in West Texas before getting into politics, left office in January after serving 14 years as governor. He began his political life in 1984 as a Democrat before switching the GOP in 1989, as it became ascendent in Texas politics.
In 2012, Perry unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination. He entered the campaign as one of the frontrunners, only to see his stock plummet after a series of of gaffes, including a moment in a debate when he could not remember the name of a federal agency he had previously pledged to abolish.
Perry — who later blamed his faltering 2012 performance on lack of preparation and the aftereffects of back surgery — did not mention his first campaign during his kickoff rally. But he did offer scathing criticism of President Barack Obama’s leadership.
“We have been led by a divider who has sliced and diced the electorate, pitting American against American for political purposes,” he said. “Weakness at home has led to weakness abroad. The world has descended into a chaos of this president’s own making, while his White House loyalists construct an alternative universe where ISIS is contained and Ramadi is merely a setback.”
Perry also decried what he called “the arrogance of Washington DC, representing itself as some beacon of wisdom, with policies smothering this vast land with no regard for what makes each state and community unique.”
He also sounded a note of economic populism, saying “it is time to create real jobs, to raise wages, to create opportunity for all, to give every citizen a stake in this country, to restore hope — real hope — to forgotten Americans, millions of middle class families who have given up hope of getting ahead.”
As he pursues the presidency, Perry is also battling felony charges of abuse of power and coercion brought by a prosecutor in Austin stemming from his veto, as governor, of $7.5 million in funding for a public integrity unit in the office of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg.
In April 2013, Lehmberg, a Democrat, was arrested for driving with a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit, and video showed her being combative with the arresting officers. Perry demanded the Lehmberg resign and, when she didn’t, followed through with a threat to veto funding for the unit.
Perry has vowed to fight the charges, which he has dismissed as politically motivated.
Perry is one of eight Southern Republicans who have launched, or are expected to launch, presidential bids in 2016.
The Southern GOP field, then, is divided equally between senators and governors. Two of the last three Republicans elected president — George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan — served as governor. The last GOP senator elected to the presidency was Warren Harding in 1920.
On the Democratic side, former U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has already launched an exploratory committee for the 2016 Democratic nomination — a race that’s expected to be dominated by former Secretary of State Clinton, a former first lady of Arkansas who went on to be elected to the Senate from New York.
Texan kicks off campaign with a pitch aimed at Christian conservatives
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LYNCHBURG, Virginia (CFP) — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has become the first candidate in either party to announce a run for the White House in 2016, with an exhortation to Christian conservatives to get involved in the political process and vote their “values.”
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz
“What is the promise of America?” Cruz asked students at Liberty University, where he announced his campaign March 23. “The revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon, which is that our rights don’t come from man. They come from Almighty God. And that the purpose of the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government.”
Rather than announce his campaign in his home state of Texas, Cruz chose Liberty University, a 13,000-student school in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, a leader in the Christian conservative political movement who also founded the Moral Majority in 1979.
In his opening campaign salvo, Cruz, who wore a headset microphone and paced across the stage as he spoke, asked the crowd to “imagine millions of courageous conservatives, all across America, rising up together to say in unison, ‘We demand our liberty.'”
“Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a federal government that works to defend the sanctity of human life and to uphold the sacrament of marriage.”
And on the fifth anniversary of the signing of Obamacare into law, Cruz vowed as president to sign legislation “repealing every word” of the health care law.
Cruz, 44, a Harvard Law School graduate and one-time national debating champion, won his Senate seat in 2012 in an upset made possible by Tea Party support. In the Senate, he has been an occasional thorn in the side of GOP leaders and was among the Republicans who helped trigger a government shutdown in 2013 in a dispute with Democrats over repealing Obamacare.
Cruz is one of nine Southerners — eight Republicans and one Democrat — considering a White House bid in 2016.
On the Democratic side, former U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has already launched an exploratory committee for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination — a race that’s expected to be dominated by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former first lady of Arkansas.
Republican voters in Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll had the least favorable view of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham
WASHINGTON (CFP) — A new poll finds that among the eight Southerners considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is viewed most favorably by Republican voters.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
Fifty-six percent of Republican voters surveyed by in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said they could see themselves supporting Rubio, while just 26 percent could not, a favorability gap of 30 points. Fourteen percent were undecided.
Not only was that the best showing among the potential Southern contenders, but it was better than every other expected candidate in the field except Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who had a favorability gap of 36 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum, just 26 percent of Republican voters said they could see themselves supporting U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, while 51 percent — an outright majority — could not, an unfavorability gap of 31 points. However, 29 percent were still undecided about Graham.
The poll showed Republican voters may have largely made up their minds about three of the possible candidates in the race — former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. The percentage of undecided for all three was under 12 percent.
But substantial percentages of the GOP voters have not made up their minds about Graham, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, all of whom had undecided readings above 20 percent.
The margin of error in the poll, released March 11, was plus or minus 6.48 percentage points.
Here is how the other potential Southern candidates fared:
Huckabee: 52 percent could support, 40 percent could not support, 8 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 12 points.
Bush: 49 percent could support, 42 percent could not support, 9 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 7 points.
Paul of Kentucky: 49 percent could support, 40 percent could not support, 11 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 9 points.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: 45 percent could support, 40 percent could not support, 15 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 5 points.
Cruz: 40 percent could support, 38 percent could not support, 22 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 2 points.
Jindal: 36 percent could support, 25 percent could not support, 39 percent undecided. Favorability gap of 11 points.
On the Democratic side, former U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has already launched an exploratory committee for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination — a race that’s expected to be dominated by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former first lady of Arkansas.
In his inaugural address, Abbott takes swipe at Washington for threatening state’s “sovereignty”
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitcs.com editor
AUSTIN, Texas (CFP) — Republican Greg Abbott took the oath of office as Texas governor with a pledge to keep his state “on a path that ensures that years from now, people will stand on this very ground as grateful to this generation as we are to past generations.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
During his inauuration as the Lone Star State’s 48th governor January 20, Abbott also took a swipe at Washington’s perceived intrusions into his state’s authority.
“As governor, I will continue my legacy of pushing back against Washington if they spend too much, regulate too much or violate our state sovereignty,” he said. “Any government that uses the guise of fairness to rob us of our freedom will get a uniquely Texas response — ‘Come and take it.'”
“We Texans aren’t spoiling for a fight, but we won’t shrink from one.”
Abbott, 57, who served eight years as state attorney general before winning the governorship in November, said the priorities of his administration would include road construction, increasing the water supply and keeping Texas “number one in the nation for job creation.”
Abbott also noted the unusual nature of his ascent in state politics: His wife wife, Cecelia, is Texas’s first Latina first lady, and Abbott himself uses a wheelchair after being paralyzed in an accident 30 years ago.
“I am living proof that we live in a state where a young man’s life can literally be broken in half, and yet he can still ruse up to become (governor.)”
Abbott succeeds Republican Rick Perry, who served 14 years as governor, the longest tenure in Texas history. Perry is considering a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
ST. LOUIS (CFP) — Four months before the first vote is cast, former Texas Governor 
WASHINGTON (CFP) — A new poll finds that among the eight Southerners considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, 
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