Politex

Perry drops 10 points in latest Fox News poll

Apparently weakened by a poor performance in the last presidential debate, Gov. Rick Perry has dropped 10 points in the latest Fox News poll, yielding his lead in the Republican presidential race to chief rival Mitt Romney.

The poll, released Wednesday night, signaled a major reshuffling in the scramble for the Republican presidential nomination, with Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, back in the lead with 23 percent.

Perry, who earlier had dethroned Romney to become the Republican front-runner, is now four points behind Romney and in second place with 19 percent. In the last poll in late August, Perry led the field with 29 percent.

The poll also further documented a stunning surge by Atlanta businessman Herman Cain, who has vaulted from the status of a back-in-the-pack candidate to become the third-leading contender, with 17 percent, only two points behind Perry. Cain, who had 6 percent in the last Fox survey, was the surprise winner of last week's Republican straw poll in Florida, an event that Perry was heavily favored to win.

Also gathering momentum was former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now in fourth place with 11 percent, an 8-point climb from the last poll. Former Utah Gov. John Huntsman, though still in single digits, also advanced, from 1 percent to 4 percent.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who has attracted a loyal following with a libertarian-style message, dipped slightly, from 8 percent to 6 percent and is in fifth place.

The poll gave more bad news to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who won a mid-August Republican straw poll in Iowa and was initially seen as a potentially strong contender with heavy Tea Party support. She registered only 3 percent in the Fox poll, down from a high of 15 percent in a July survey.

Fox News said the latest results show that the still-evolving Republican primary battle is now essentially a three-way tie between Romney, Perry and Cain, whose support has nearly tripled among Republican primary voters.

Perry, who stormed into the lead after a late entry into the race in mid-August, has appealed to voters by promising to "get America working again" and by touting his record on jobs creation in Texas. But, as the front-runner, he also came under sharp attack from his rivals for his positions on Social Security, immigration and other issues.

Perry supporters acknowledged that the governor stumbled in last week's Republican debate in Florida - his third since entering the race - but have described the setback as a bump in the road that Perry will eventually overcome. But some analysts say that Florida's plans to possibly move up its primary date could cause further problems for Perry by giving him less time to overcome his earlier setbacks.

A Florida commission is expected to meet Friday to change the state's primary date to Jan. 31, ahead of traditional early contest states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. Those states will likely change their dates to stay ahead of Florida, causing a major retooling of the primary and caucus calendar and forcing candidates to ramp up their campaign schedules.

-- Dave Montgomery

Along with Florida, Texas GOP also may change plans for 2012 primary

While Florida lawmakers appear likely to move up the date of their primary this week, Texas Republicans may soon approve changes to their primary as well. 

The State Republican Executive Committee will vote this Saturday on a plan to change the way Texas will allocate its primary delegates next year.

The Republican National Committee passed a rule last year requiring that states that hold primaries before April 1 must allocate their delegates proportionally by how much support each candidate receives statewide. States not in compliance risk losing half of their delegates.

In Texas, which holds its primary in March, Republicans use a complicated system that only allocates some delegates proportionally. Other delegates are assigned by a winner-take-all system within each congressional district. 

During this year's legislative session, the Texas Republican Party was among those advocating for a plan that moved the primary from March to April in order to ensure Texas wouldn't be penalized for its system. 

Once the Legislature opted to keep the primary date in March, Republican party leaders immediately began discussing how to keep from losing half of their delegates. Activists have been debating the issue ever since including how the change might impact Gov. Rick Perry's performance in his home state's primary.  

-Aman Batheja

New York Democrats using Perry's "Ponzi" talk for fundraising

Gov. Rick Perry's comments comparing Social Security to a Ponzi scheme are being used as a way to galvanize Democrats nationally and boost fundraising.

The reelection campaign of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, sent out an email this week from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, that describes Republicans as a threat to Social Security, according to capitalnewyork.com.

The fundraising letter begins:

Republicans say Social Security is just a Ponzi scheme. They think a woman’s access to health care is expendable.

This is what Kirsten and I and our Democratic colleagues are up against, but it could be worse. The GOP still doesn’t have control of the Senate—at least for now.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is also bringing up the issue. The group is encouraging supporters to sign an online petition telling "Perry and the rest of the Republican Party that you oppose candidates who want to destroy Social Security."

 Earlier this week, the DSCC promoted the issue on Twitter. Anyone who searched for tweets that mentioned "Rick Perry" saw a DSCC tweets about the peition as the first result.

Perry has said that he wants to protect existing benefits and begin "a conversation" on restructuring the federal program. Critics including Mitt Romney have accused Perry of wanting to dismantle the program or hand it over to the states. 

-Aman Batheja 

How do Texas taxes compare to other states?

The taxes paid by Texas residents and businesses are drawing more attention thanks to Gov. Rick Perry's White House bid.

On the campaign trail, Perry has touted the low taxes levied in Texas as a key to the state's economic success during the economic downturn.

We examined how Texas taxes compare to other states in a story in today's paper. The article was the first in an occasional series examining the state's economic record under Gov. Rick Perry.

From the story:

When many politicians and pundits proclaim Texas a low-tax state, they're referring to the fact that there's no personal income tax and that direct taxes on businesses are relatively low.

What draws less attention is that sales, property and wireless service taxes are higher in Texas than in most other states. 

At the state level, Texas draws most of its revenue from federal funding and sales taxes. At the local level, property taxes play a major role.

While most local governments in the states levy property taxes, the approaches to state taxes vary widely, including no income or sales tax (New Hampshire), an income tax but no sales tax (Oregon) and, most common, a mix of both. Many economists say the best approach depends on a state's characteristics, such as natural resources, quality of workforce and level of tourism.

Below is a graphic that ran with the story comparing taxes levied by the state of Texas to the average tax structures from all 50 states. Property tax isn't in the Texas chart because the property tax is only levied by local governments in Texas. 

What's clear is that Texas government relies more on sales tax than most other states. That appears to be an approach Perry thinks might work at the federal level too. In his book Fed Up!, Perry suggested possible ways of reforming the federal tax code including getting rid of the income tax entirely and instituting a national sales tax.

[Graphic: Don Cook]

-Aman Batheja

Arlington Sen. Chris Harris announces retirement, endorses Vandergriff [updated]

Texas Sen. Chris Harris announced Monday he is not running for reelection.

Harris, of Arlington, is the longest serving Republican in the Texas Senate.

"I want to express my deepest gratitude to the people of North Texas and to my family for allowing me to serve," Harris said. "It has been the greatest honor of my life that my friends and neighbors have asked me to represent them alongside so many amazing men and women for almost three decades."

Harris has served in the Texas Senate since 1991. Before that, he served in the Texas House. 

Last month, state Rep. Rodney Anderson, R-Grand Prairie, announced he planned to challenge Harris in next year's primary. At the time, Harris said he planned to run for another term.

Harris said he wants Victor Vandergriff to continue his work representing Senate District 9. Vandergriff serves as chairman of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Last week, he stepped down as chair of the North Texas Tollway Authority.

"Senate District 9 needs strong leadership and I am encouraging Victor Vandergriff to step in and take over where I will leave off in the next legislative session," Harris said.

Vandergriff said in a statement that he intends to run for Harris’ seat as a Republican but is still discussing it with family, friends and community leaders. He plans to make a formal announcement on Oct. 11.

Harris' announcement adds to the unusually high amount of turnover coming to the 31-member Senate next year. Sens. Florence Shapiro of Plano, Steve Ogden of Bryan and Mike Jackson of La Porte, all Republicans, have also announced they don't plan to run for reelection.

-Aman Batheja

SNL portrays Perry as fumbling, flip-flopper

Ever since Gov. Rick Perry said he was thinking about running for president earlier this year, many have been wondering how Saturday Night Live would portray him.

This weekend, viewers finally got their answer, though the show's depiction of the Texas Governor is likely to evolve over time.

There was no Texas swagger in the way Alec Baldwin played Perry in the show's cold open Saturday night. There was barely even a Texas accent. Rather than harnessing the image Perry has developed in the national media over the last two months, Baldwin focused entirely on Perry's lackluster debate performance from last week.

It's unclear if Baldwin, who was the show's guest host, will come back to play Perry in the future or if a cast member will take over the job.

Here's the clip:

-Aman Batheja

Perry says perfect VP would be from "mate" of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich

The Fox News/Google Republican presidential debate ended with all of the candidates being asked which of the other candidate on the stage would they pick as a running mate.

A few candidates declined to answer.

Gary Johnson said Ron Paul.

Rick Santorum said Newt Gingrich.

Ron Paul declined to answer.

Newt Gingrich decried the "game show" aspect of the question and also didn't make a pick

Perry gave easily the most memorable answer: "Well, staying with the game show idea here, I don't know how you would do this, but if you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you would have a couple of really interesting guys to work with."

The debate hall exploded with laughter.

Mitt Romney, who was next in line, then offered this comment: "There are a couple of images I'm going to have a hard time getting out of my mind."

On a side note: The idea of well-known people mating was a recurring gag for years on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The show's writers even put out a book. On the book's cover: a photoshopped guess at what the offspring of Gingrich and Hillary Clinton would look like.

-Aman Batheja

 

Romney and Perry share a giggle

Great photo from the Associated Press of Gov. Rick Perry and former Gov. Mitt Romney sharing a laugh at some point during tonight's Fox News/Google debate in Orlando.

(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, Pool)

-Aman Batheja

 

Perry on HPV: "I got lobbied" by a woman with cervical cancer

Just as in the debate last week, U.S. Rep Michelle Bachmann slammed Perry on his HPV vaccine executive order in tonight's Fox News/Google debate. 

Bachmann was asked about controversial comments she made after the debate suggesting that the HPV vaccine could cause mental retardation. Bachmann insisted she was only relating a story a woman had told her after the debate, and then quickly pivoted to Perry.

"I only related what her story was. But here's the real issue: Gov. Perry mandated a healthcare decision on all 12-year-old girls in the state of Texas," Bachmann said.

Bachmann then accused Perry of enacting the order in order to help vaccine maker Merck, who had donated to Perry's campaign and who had employed a lobbyist who was Perry's former chief of staff.

Perry appeared ready for such an attack and immediately responded.

"i got lobbied on this issue," Perry said. "I got lobbied by a 31-year-old young lady who had stage 4 cervical cancer. I spent a lot of time with her."

Perry, who in recent weeks has said the order was a mistake and that he should have made it an opt-in program instead of an opt-out, seemed to express some annoyance at the distinction.

"I've readily admitted we should have an opt-in in this program but I don't know what part of opt-out most parents don't get," Perry said.

-Aman Batheja

 

 

Perry draws fire during questions on illegal immigration

What became clear as the Republican presidential candidates debated immigration in tonight's Orlando debate is how much they disagree with Gov. Rick Perry on how to address it.

Over several minutes, the candidates debated three different immigration issues: requiring employers to check the immigration status of new hires, allowing illegal immigrants to receive subsidized tuition and building a border fence.

On all three issues, Perry is on one side and at least some of the other candidates are firmly on the other.

The first question was on requiring employers to use the E-verify system to confirm the status of new hires.

Newt Gingrich said the federal government should outsource the service to a company like Visa who would be able to manage it without producing any fraud.

Mitt Romney also said he supports a program "like e-Verify"

Perry wasn't asked about e-Verify but he is on the record as being critical of the program. It's not a new position for Perry. Back in 2010, in a Republican debate against primary opponents Debra Medina and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry was dismissive of the program.

"It would not make a hill of beans’ difference in what’s happening today," Perry said at the time.

Next, the debate shifted to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Texas was the first state in the nation to pass such a law back in 2001 and Perry supported it.

Romney slammed Perry for supporting the measure.

"We have to turn off the magnet of extraordinary government benefits like a $100,000 tax credit -- or, excuse me, discount for going to the University of Texas. That shouldn't be allowed," Romney said.

Perry accused those of not interested in supporting such a program as lacking "heart"

"We need to be edcuating these children because they will become a drag on our society," Perry said.

Santorum accused Perry of building a straw man argument over whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to go to college. Santorum said Perry was ignoring the real criticism: that Texas chose to subsidize the tuition of those students.

Santorum and Perry than argued over buliding a border fence. Santorum is for it. Perry only supports it in strategic areas.

-Aman Batheja