Rick Perry is In: No More Vacuum on the Republican Side of the Presidential Race

There are a lot of people who make superior governors, congressional representatives or senators, but who are not presidential timber - at least not in the current climate. Tim Pawlenty has just stepped aside from the presidential race. I admire Herman Cain and hope he will do well this go round, perhaps building toward a successful candidacy later on (or a senate run - Cain would be a top notch Senator), but he's missing the crucial "head of government" experience that I believe voters will require for the next couple of decades.

Now that Rick Perry has stepped up to the plate, we have a candidate to get excited about. I'm thrilled, and yesterday was a zippity doo dah day here: we got 2 1/2" of glorious rain, and Governor Perry announced with an amazing and inspiring speech.

Perry has been a truly good governor. He represents everybody, and pretty much he's a WYSIWYG kind of man. He believes what he says, and he stands up fearlessly for what he believes. He has a sense of humor, and doesn't take himself too seriously. He can look after himself, and has no pity for evil men who harm innocent people.

He's an unapologetic Christian, and willing to show it.

He used to be a conservative Democrat, like me and a whole bunch of other Texans. In 1989, he walked over to the Republican bench. So did many of us in response when the Democrat Party finally went insane after the 2000 elections. He puts his values and his State before any party. [8/16 Correction: My badly constructed sentence originally implied Perry became a Republican in 2000. Edited to clarify.]

He knows there's a solution to every problem and thinks outside the box. Every once in a while he's had a boneheaded idea, but once the electorate clarified that for him, he was willing to take "no" for an answer from the citizenry. He's not still trying to sneak those things in under cover of something else, like so many politicians. That's humility at work.

Rick Perry really likes people, and has friends among all sorts. He can talk with anyone because he's really interested in the person. When he went to Los Angeles in June to speak at a "United For Life" event raising funds for a new women's clinic, the mostly Hispanic crowd of 5,000 gave him a standing ovation.

Rick Perry will be our next President. I've only one possible caveat, and that would be a Sarah Palin candidacy.

If Sarah Palin should decide to run this year, how cool would that be to have TWO fabulous candidates, both of whom would represent Real America, from which to choose?

That's what our elections are supposed to be about: about choosing the best of a great lot. It gives me renewed hope to know we still have such people with the courage to run.

Governor Palin is the only person who can compete with Governor Perry, but as I have posted elsewhere, I've long had a suspicion that she was waiting to make certain the candidate void was filled before issuing a final decision - and now that Perry has agreed to run, it may no longer be essential that she do so this year.

(In fact, and I have nothing to base this on but a gut feeling, I would not be surprised to learn years from now that Palin, Perry, and Trump have coordinated for some time.)

My thinking about Sarah Palin as a leader is that she works on the shortest distance between two points. I believe her current goal is to help us restore the US federal government on a broad spectrum to trustworthy representation for America's future wellbeing, and that doesn't stop with the presidency, in fact it doesn't even start there. As the debt limit capitulation showed, the rehabilitation of Congress has only just begun.

So, I believe that whether she decides to run for President or not will depend on whether she & Todd feel she can best accomplish these things from within the oval office, or whether with Perry firmly holding the fort there, she would then be free to turn her remarkable skills of influence toward other essential steps.

Sarah Palin's campaign has already started, and is moving along famously. The question now is which campaign it is!

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8/16 UPDATE: I've added a few links to this post that lead to good information about important questions, and will add more from time to time.