Not everyone on the right is in love with Governor Goodhair Rick Perry

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos saved me the time and trouble of compiling the list of complaints against Neo-Confederate secessionist Governor Goodhair Rick Perry (R-TX) from the right — apparently not everyone is in love with him, like the feckless Washington, D.C. media villagers and Beltway bloviators (is this going to be a replay of Bush 2000 all over again?) Rick Perry's problems with the Right:

Immigration

[The Arizona Republic Far right questions Rick Perry on immigration]

Perry isn't a liberal on the issue, by any measure, but he's certainly not in the Xenophobic camp.

Reflecting the close ties of his state to Mexico, Perry is to the left of the center of gravity of the rest of the party on the issue. Most significantly, he signed a Texas version of the DREAM Act back in 2001, allowing foreign-born children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition for college if they have lived in the state for three years prior to graduating high school […]

He also opposed the Arizona immigration law. He criticized it on grounds that it would “turn law-enforcement officers into immigration officials,” and said it wouldn’t be right for Texas.

Perry opposes the federal DREAM Act because … well, just because. He's running for president in a GOP primary, you know?

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NAFTA Superhighway

Have you heard about this conspiracy theory? It's a Jerome Corsi special.

Ron Paul wants you to be scared. There's a conspiracy in the land—what he calls a "conspiracy of ideas"—to give up America's sovereignty. It's a shadowy scheme that begins with the NAFTA "superhighway," a road as wide as several football fields that will link Mexico, the United States and Canada. "They don't talk about it and they might not admit it," Paul said at the CNN-YouTube presidential debate last week. He didn't say exactly who "they" are, but perhaps one can guess. . .There's "an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments" pushing the idea, Paul wrote in October 2006. "The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union—complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union."

Egads! Hide the women and children! But whatever the merits (there are none), fact is that Perry actually proposed a series of new highways interconnecting the various corners of Texas—an aborted scheme that many assumed was part of the NAFTA superhighway.

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Mandatory HPV vaccinations

Speaking of conspiracy theories, how about the one that vaccinating teenage girls for HPV will totally turn them into whores?

For years, Gov. Rick Perry has taken flak for his 2007 attempt to require girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, the most commonly sexually transmitted disease and the principal cause of cervical cancer. At the risk of angering fellow conservatives, Perry has always insisted he did the right thing.

That unapologetic approach changed this weekend.

A few hours after unveiling his campaign for president, Perry began walking back from one of the most controversial decisions of his more-than-10-year reign as Texas governor.

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The fundies hate protecting girls from sexually transmitted diseases. In their minds, the sluts deserve whatever punishment they might get for having sex. Rick Perry was on the right side of that issue, until forced to cave.

10th Amendment

Apparently, pretending to stick to the 10th Amendment as a true guiding principle is freaking out social conservatives.

In recent weeks Perry has also sought to clarify his 10th Amendment-friendly statements on other hot-button issues. A few weeks before jumping into the race, Perry said in Aspen, Colo., that gay marriage should be left up to the individual states. Gay marriage in New York?

“That’s their business,” Perry said. Later, in Houston, Perry said he would allow states to set abortion policy if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned some day as he hopes.

The statements prompted criticism among Christian conservatives. Perry also took a pounding from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a struggling GOP presidential candidate and social conservative, who criticized his laissez-faire approach. Perry has since begun stressing the need for federal constitutional bans on both gay marriage and abortion.

You see? All that "states' rights" crap is just empty rhetoric. And now, Perry is being forced to abandon it lest it hurt his chances for the nomination.

Al Gore

Perry endorsed Al Gore for president in 1988. Nuff said.

Markos left out one — the persistent "gay" rumor, never substantiated, that refuses to die. Would Rumors About His Marriage Haunt a Rick Perry Run? — Daily Intel. ("[T]he gossip didn't go entirely dormant, at least not when it was politically expedient: Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Perry's opponent in the 2010 gubernatorial election, juiced up the SEO keywords of her campaign website with "rick perry gay.") Social conservative culture warriors say they want limited government, with the exception that they want to be the sex police snooping in everyone's bedroom. They want to make sure there ain't no gay goin' on.

Today Governor Goodhair proved he is just another big mouthed Texan (redundant, I know) when he accused Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke of "treason" and sorta threatened him. That brought out Karl Rove to defend Bernanke. Apparently Governor Goodhair never heard of the century-old Federal Reserve Act which gives the Fed the authority to print money. Doh!

Jed Lewison reports at Daily Kos: GOP establishment blisters Rick Perry:

[Gov. Rick Perry] took a shellacking from his own party's establishment for accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and threatening to deliver a Texas-style beatdown should the Fed Chairman ever set foot in the state. Karl Rove and gang are leading the way in umbrage-taking, saying Perry's comments were irresponsible and unpresidential. The GOP's top funders are piling on, telling Jonathan Martin that they are very unhappy with Perry's cowboy flair and might not donate to his campaign as a result.

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Meanwhile, even as Perry's campaign is gaining steam, establishment Republicans are trying to cool it down.

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But even though they don't seem to like Rick Perry or think he'd be a good candidate, the GOP establishment still has a problem: They're afraid they don't have anyone who can beat him. They'd love Mitt Romneybot to win the nomination, but it's starting to dawn on them that nobody likes Romney, and that Romney's campaign is in fact doomed. Michele Bachmann? Ack! She's like Perry, only smarter and female. Clearly, that won't do.

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[W]here do they turn? Ah, yes, to Paul Ryan! He proposed repealing Medicare, after all. Surely the teahadists can rally around that, right?

There is no love lost between Karl Rove and Governor Goodhair. I have been curious to see what the Rove camp and the big time campaign bundlers behind him will do now that Perry is in the race. Will Rove try to destroy him? He will need a candidate, and Rep. Paul Ryan can certainly give Rick Perry a run for his money in the good hair department, anyway.

UPDATE: W's Revenge: Ex-Bushies Gang Up On Rick Perry | TPMDC

A key indicator will be the Rupert Murdoch meter — the way candidates are treated in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and on FAUX News Fraudcasting where Karl Rove is a frequent guest.