Freedom Line Blog

Yesterday, RealClearPolitics broke a story about Texas Governor Rick Perry being a sleeper candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.  Today, RCP says that Perry’s Tuesday speech to Republican National Committee members in Dallas is raising his profile significantly.

Republican strategists in Washington told RealClearPolitics that GOP operatives who attended Perry’s speech Tuesday afternoon called them with reactions ranging from “This guy should be our nominee” to “He wowed the crowd.” They said he ditched his notes and spoke extemporaneously, firing away.

The Washington Times went so far as to report that the reaction to Perry was so unusually good from a wide array of attendees at the meeting that there is already discussion of a draft movement under way.

Having worked in Texas state politics while Perry was governor in 2003 and 2005, I can say that his approach to governing is decidedly hands-off.  That works in culturally conservative, constitutionally limited Texas.  It’s easy to talk about the 10^th Amendment when you’re a governor, and it’s not that hard to keep the status quo of low taxes and rugged individualism in a state that pioneered the ethos.  With all this, Perry looks and sounds Texan.

But it’s a different ballgame going to Washington, D.C. as the elected head of Leviathan armed with a Tea Party mandate to repeal ObamaCare.  Moreover, any Republican elected president next year will have to be able to put the federal government on a different fiscal and cultural trajectory; one that moves away from government dependency, and toward economic growth and personal opportunity within a traditional American framework.

I’m not saying Perry can’t be the conservative savior many in the GOP are waiting for.  It’s just that so far, his record indicates little more than a politician who knows how to get elected and leave things as they are.  After Obama, that won’t be enough.

It looks like Texas Governor Rick Perry isn’t the only state official who thinks the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” education funding competition is a game not worth the candle.  With 45 states participating, and 14 making the final round, only 2 states (Delaware and Tennessee) won.  The Department of Education also announced a cap on future awards – but not on federal requirements that follow the money – prompting several states to reconsider before reapplying.

But there is one benefit so far:

In Colorado, Van Schoales, executive director of Education Reform Now, a national advocacy group that supports Colorado’s participation in the competition, said the new award limit had strengthened the hand of teachers’ unions and rural school boards that, in opposing further participation, denounce federal intrusion.

“I’m surprised to see that there is a growing tide of people, an unholy alliance between unions and rural educators, who want us to say no to reapplying,” Mr. Schoales said.

If such an “unholy alliance” is what it takes to get states to kick their addiction to quick-fix federal dollars, so be it.

The Founding Fathers deliberately included in the Bill of Rights the Tenth Amendment, which states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This notion of federalism, or “states’ rights,” was obviously a core tenet of our Constitution and one that provided the reassurance necessary for ratification.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, however, suggests that this vital, fundamental aspect of the Constitution is merely code for slavery, segregation or racism amongst those inconvenient Tea Partiers.  During his February 9 “Hardball” broadcast, Matthews reacted to those such as Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry and fellow Republican candidate Debra Medina who seek to reclaim greater federalist balance by angrily asking, “who is this, John Calhoun?!?!”

You recall John Calhoun, that early-18th century Vice President from South Carolina who supported slavery.  According to Matthews, advocating simple Tenth Amendment concepts is tantamount to advocating slavery, apparently.  Matthews proceeded to quote Martin Luther King, Jr. for any of his loyal viewers who failed to comprehend his oh-so-subtle Calhoun reference.

This is the same Chris Matthews, of course, who fawns over Barack Obama by describing the thrill that runs through his leg when listening to another teleprompted speech, and who childishly attempts to slur Tea Party activists by referring to them as “tea baggers.”

We’ve come a long way from states’ rights proponents James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.  Still believe in Darwinism?