If Rick Perry is Victorious, U.S. Policy Would Toughen Up

Senior Research Fellow Ariel Cohen comments on the most likely Republican candidate for president:

And finally we have a Republican leader in the pre-election race. He is Rick Perry: conservative governor of Texas, religious Christian Evangelist, exemplary family man, and ex-pilot. It is obvious why Democrats, who are hostile towards him, are calling him “Bush on Steroids.”

Barak Obama’s rapidly falling popularity works for Perry. According to the Gallup poll in August, only 38 percent of Americans currently support the president’s actions, meaning those who don’t support them come in at 54 percent. This is a very negative sign for the president, keeping in mind the two men who lost their reelection races: Democrat Jimmy Carter and George Bush Senior. Every president who has run for reelection since Roosevelt and won had a popularity rating higher than 45 percent and an unemployment rate of less than 7-8 percent for over a year before the election. During Obama’s administration the official unemployment rate is currently 9 percent, while the actual number is over 15 percent and rising. If the elections were held today, Obama would lose.

Such a situation, according to most experts in D.C., gives Rick Perry a good chance to become the main Republican candidate for president. James Richard Perry, who was born in 1950 on March 4, could be labeled without a doubt as an example of the American dream. Rick Perry, an “effective manager” and politician, who set the U.S. record of longest serving governor, with 11 years of service, grew up on a farm in Texas in a house without a water pipe. In 2000, when Texas Governor George Bush Jr. was elected president, Rick Perry became the newest occupant of the governor’s house in Austin. Since then Perry has won the governor’s election in 2002, 2006, and in 2010. For the 11 years of his governorship, Texas has become a leader among other states in creating new employment positions. Most of them are low paying jobs, but it is better than unemployment.

Perry is also attractive for the main electorate groups that traditionally vote for candidates from the Republican Party. Such groups include Christian conservatives, financial conservatives, the Tea Party, and the Hawks. In addition, Perry is a deeply religious Protestant and against abortion and same sex marriage. Last month Perry and 30 thousand adherents held a prayer service in Houston for the end of the crisis in America.

Perry calls for increasing the extraction of oil and gas, which, in his opinion, would make the U.S. “completely independent from the world in terms of energy.“* These kinds of statements are praised in oil-producing states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Alaska, as well as states rich in natural resources. After last years’ catastrophe in the Mexican gulf, when the federal government started to consider prohibiting further works in these areas, Perry called the tragedy unpreventable.

It seems that Rick Perry’s main deficiency is that he reminds the Independent and Liberal electorates of his former boss George Bush Jr. Some observers admit that if Perry were to step on the national stage, where the press would scrutinize his every word, the ex-pilot would have to decrease his polemical defiance.

Perry already slipped when he referred to the soft credit policy of the Federal Reserve System, accusing Chairmen of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke’s strategy of being “treasonous.” He added that, in Texas, “We would treat [Bernanke] pretty ugly down in Texas.” This aggressive statement from the Texas governor shocked even Republicans.

Needless to say, in the case of Perry’s victory, U.S. policy would become much rougher than it is now. Among Perry’s advisors are Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and one of the main initiators of the war in Iraq; William Luti, former employee of the Homeland Security Council, who specialized in the Middle East; Daniel Fata, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy; Andrew McCarthy, former public prosecutor and one of the most active supporters for the war against terror.

In other words, possible president Rick Perry and his administration would most likely start a revision of those kinds of White House projects that, in their opinion, are threats to homeland security. It is possible that those types of projects could include policies of “rebuilding” relationships with Russia.

The author is a member of the Heritage Foundation and is a Senior Research Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.