Rick Perry quits

[MyOneAndOnly]

Rick Perry won't run for reelection next year because he's done that

also maybe for President again after the black guy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3562089.html

[Trotskilicious]

there's three things wrong with him running for president

1. he's stupid
2. he's an asshole
and uh, hmm

[sppunk]

Abbott would be even worse/more polarizing probably.

[Order 66]

he was probably the worst "serious" presidential candidate in my lifetime. that campaign really wrecked him at home

i think abbott has about $18 million in the chest so far. ... i wonder if they'll throw a legit democrat in there like castro or just some placeholder

[Trotskilicious]

WENDY DAVIS

[MyOneAndOnly]

No he wasn't the worst. Palin was the worst. But, it won't matter because teabaggers reward the crazies.

We need more Latinos to vote in Texas to get rid of these assholes.

[Future Boy]

Palin wasnt a presidential candidate.

[MyOneAndOnly]

early on in 2011 she played up the possibility of a run. Enough so that many of the right wing rags included her in their list of 2012 perspective candidates. But yeah, she never went through with it.

You really think Perry was worse than Herman Cain or Bachmann? Cain isn't even a politician. Perry looked like a clueless idiot in debates, but the guy has been governor for a decade in one of the biggest states in the country... and he lines up politically with every single hot button Republican issue. He's Dubya the sequel in every sense of the word.

I don't think Perry would make those mistakes again if he runs in 2016.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

We need more Latinos to vote in Texas to get rid of these assholes.

i guess you just don't pay attention to supreme court rulings in suburbia huh

[Tchocky]

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

i guess you just don't pay attention to supreme court rulings in suburbia huh

What are you getting at? Texas Gerrymandering and SCOTUS gutting of the voting rights act?

[MyOneAndOnly]

Cause even with gerrymandering there's an inevitable demographic shift going on in Texas. Within 2 presidential election cycles it will be enough to shift Texas to a competitive state in national elections.

It could happen faster if more eligible Latinos in Texas voted

[duovamp]

Davis / Booker 2016

[duovamp]

They might be underqualified but fuck it who cares.

[Order 66]

speaking of .. i'm meeting greg abbot this weekend (long story)... no idea what i'm going to talk to him about. gonna be awwwwkward

[killtrocity]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

Cause even with gerrymandering there's an inevitable demographic shift going on in Texas. Within 2 presidential election cycles it will be enough to shift Texas to a competitive state in national elections.

It could happen faster if more eligible Latinos in Texas voted

That's what they're trying to prevent, it's their last hope

[MyOneAndOnly]

Unfortunately, this country has a long history of legalized disenfranchisement like Jim Crow. The Texas GOP is borrowing from that playbook.

[stumpycat]

Perry is a dumb shit social conservative ideologue.
Abbott is a an intelligent and motivated social conservative pragmatist.

Are Abbott's more pragmatic leanings going to be at least somewhat of a bulwark against extreme social conservative ideology, or does his greater intelligence actually make him more of a threat than Perry? In either case, we all know it's nearly a foregone conclusion that he's going to be our next governor anyhow. I'm also increasingly convinced that in actuality he's just going to double down on Perry's policies.

RE: Gerrymandering - I'm not sure how far you'd have to push a demographic shift percentage wise to overcome the insane way in which districts are drawn to encapsulate "just enough" reliable republican votes to make a majority of them. Women, young people, and working class whites need to vote for their rights and actual economic interests as opposed to social ideology, for one thing. The exurbs are growing here, too, as people from out of state relocate here for their corporate or professional jobs and they are pretty reliably majority republican from what I can see.

[Order 66]

i dunno if abbott is really any more intelligent or pragmatic than any other mainstream red state GOP politician. i mean he's obvs not as stupid as perry but that's a pretty low bar

when i met him i got the impression he cribbed most of what he was saying straight from glenn beck or something. kept going on about how liberals were infiltrating the education system, and just overall "us versus t**** sort of rhetoric. but he could've just been playing lip service to his demographic, i dunno. he wasn't a blathering idiot, at least

it varies from administrations but i think the TX governorship is largely ceremonial anyway

[stumpycat]

Yes, Perry is a very low bar indeed. He even makes W. Bush look smart by comparison.
Everyone in the local news media and around me discusses Abbott in the most glowing terms. I think a part of that is definitely the love affair that's been built around his narrative of overcoming disability by becoming an ultra-driven hardass. As I am becoming more aware of his real policy perspectives, though, it sees like he may well be just another republican coming from that same place on the hard right.

i think the TX governorship is largely ceremonial anyway

Well sort of, yeah, because of how our Texas Constitution was written to make our governorship one of the weakest in the nation. The lieutenant governor has more real legislative power in some respects, even.