Perry has released his first campaign ad:
News release on Perry’s website: Obama Administration Should Impose Freeze on New Federal Regulations.
And the vetting of the newest member of the 2012 field begins:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have forgotten a thing or two about the Al Gore presidential campaign he helped lead in 1988. In an interview with an Iowa radio station on Monday, the Republican presidential contender explained his role as the Gore campaign’s Texas chairman by saying that “this was Al Gore before he invented the Internet and got to be Mr. Global Warming.”
But in fact, global warming was already a significant theme for Gore in 1987 and 1988 — long before his activism led to several books, a Nobel Prize and a part in an Academy Award-winning film. It was also well before the right gave him the “Mr. Ozone” nickname and talk radio heaped endless mockery on the future vice president.
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So was all this unknown to Perry, who at the time was a Democrat trying to put Gore in the White House? No, Perry spokesman Mark Miner said Monday. They just disagreed.
“The governor has always been a conservative and didn’t agree with Al Gore on every issue, global warming being one of them,” Miner said in an email to POLITICO.
Perry has, of course, broken with Gore before. In a December 2009 speech to builders in Dallas, Perry said a lot had changed in the years since he worked on Gore’s campaign: “I certainly got religion. I think he’s gone to hell.”
In a 2007 speech to Californian Republicans, Perry said: “I’ve heard Al Gore talk about man-made global warming so much that I’m starting to think that his mouth is the leading source of all that supposedly deadly carbon dioxide.”
Perry on social security:
I asked him about his suggestion to Newsweek last year that he’d replace Social Security with state-run pension programs, and he backed only slightly away from it.
“I’m for having a conversation with the country about how we find some solutions,” he said. “Having the states doing it is one of the ways.”
What he didn’t do: Intone the usual Republican defensive point that his promise is to save and secure Social Security; he remains open to repealing it and replacing it with a different system.
Perry’s first flip flop?
Rick Perry, “Manly Man.”
Perry on Bernanke:
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election,” Perry said, “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we — we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous in my opinion.”
He added, “We’ve already tried this. All it’s going to be doing is devaluing the dollar in your pocket and we cannot afford that. We have to learn the lessons of the past three years that they’ve been devastating. The President of the United States has conducted an experiment on the American economy for almost the last three years, and it has gone tragically wrong and we need to send him a clear message in November of 2012 that new leadership is coming.”
Rick Perry and the HPV debacle.
Bill Clinton thinks Perry’s ideas are crazy, which I guess is a good sign?
Former President Bill Clinton says Rick Perry is a “good-looking rascal” but dismisses the Texas governor’s policies as “crazy.” …
Clinton said it was “crazy” that Perry wants to cut the federal government but would take advantage of government perks like Air Force One if elected president.
Oh, please.
Perry and China. Personally I think it’s a big nothingburger, but click the link if you want to.
Pamela Gellar thinks Perry is the “stealth jihad” candidate.
Perry gave an interview to Iowa radio station WHO and talked about his record, policies, etc… 27 minutes:
In other news, Team Huntsman has some familiar names in it, like John Weaver -
John Weaver, chief strategist » The architect of Huntsman’s bid, Weaver has twice before tried to land his candidate in the White House, falling short both times. In 2000, Weaver orchestrated McCain’s come-from-behind victory in the New Hampshire primary only to see the bid unravel in South Carolina amid a mud-flinging showdown.
Weaver blamed then-Gov. George W. Bush’s top strategist, Karl Rove, for throwing out rumors that McCain had an illegitimate black child with a prostitute; McCain has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. The feud ended a long-standing relationship between Weaver and Rove. When Bush was elected president, Weaver found himself on the outs with the GOP establishment. Weaver moved on, grabbing gigs with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to earn a paycheck.
“What can I say?” Weaver told Esquire magazine at the time. “Like me, all the moderate Republicans have been run out of the party by the right. I’m doing what I’ve always done politically; these guys just call themselves Democrats now.”
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Fred Davis, media consultant » Fred Davis, who produced the curious videos of an anonymous motorcyclist zipping through Utah’s Monument Valley to launch Huntsman’s campaign, is pioneering a new wave of political commercials: quirky, odd, shocking, attention-grabbing. He was the man behind the 2008 McCain spot putting Obama on par with Paris Hilton: “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world,” the ad intoned.
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Matt David, campaign manager » Matt David, who took over the Huntsman campaign’s top spot after the previous manager resigned amid a staff shake-up, is known as an aggressive and skilled manager, traits he likely picked up while working for Schwarzenegger.
Huntsman also picked up Pawlenty’s top NH staffer:
New Hampshire campaign director Sarah Crawford Stewart has re-emerged as a senior consultant for candidate Jon Huntsman. Stewart tells New Hampshire’s Union Leader: “Gov. Huntsman is committed to winning the New Hampshire primary, and I look forward to helping him and his team do just that.”
Stewart was deputy campaign manager for John McCain’s 2008 primary campaign.
Romney is out to contrast himself with Perry and Cain:
TweetMitt Romney said today his blend of private sector and government experience makes him uniquely qualified to be president among his fellow Republican contenders – and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama. Reacting to Rick Perry’s weekend entry into the GOP race, Romney said he liked the Texas governor personally but believed his own 25-year career as a venture capitalist left him better suited to create jobs.
Yet he also differentiated himself from the only other former business executive in the field, onetime Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, by embracing his four-year tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
“I think understanding how the economy works by having worked in the real economy is finally essential for the White House, and I hope people recognize that,” Romney told reporters after touring and addressing employees at a small manufacturer in this Manchester suburb.
“I respect the other people in this race, but I think the only other person that has that kind of extensive private sector experience, besides me, in the Republican race is Herman Cain. And I respect Herman Cain, but I also think it’s helpful to have had that government experience that I’ve had,” said Romney.