In 1980, Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory of 44 US States and 489 electoral votes to defeat Jimmy Carter, who was then viewed as the weakest and possibly the worst US President in the 20th Century. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 49 US States and 525 electoral votes to usher in his second term as President.
1980 Electoral Map (Reagan vs Carter)
1984 Electoral Map (Reagan vs Mondale)
The liberal media sees a potential parallel between 1980 and 2012 as Governor Rick Perry surges ahead of the Republican pack of potential presidential candidates. 
I don’t know who the Republican Party will choose to run against Barack Obama, but at the moment, Governor Perry has emerged as the largest threat to two groups: (1) The Democratic Party and by extension, the mainstream media, (2) RINOs, which include the Republican consultant class (including Carl Rove). Because Perry isn’t their constituent.
The mainstream media are working long hours to mount campaigns against Governor Perry, who has replaced Mitt Romney as the poster child (and target) for their angst. The parallels between Reagan and Carter are simply unnerving to them.
Perry is a conservative. He’s a close personal friend of rock musician Ted Nugent. For any of you who don’t know where Nugent stands on firearms ownership and a host of other conservative issues, I wonder where you’ve been for the last decade at least. 
I’m going to tick off a few boxes on where Perry stands on some key issues:
  • Securing US Borders – Perry favors a Mexico-United States Barrier to keep out illegal aliens. If Governor Perry were to enter the White House, I don’t think that Arizona would need to fight that battle (in their state) alone anymore.
  • In the speech kicking off his campaign, Perry said that he wanted to make “the Federal Government as inconsequential in your lives as possible”. In other words, he’d reverse the socialist trends that have been the hallmark of the Obama Presidency.
  • He is critical of the Federal Reserve’s policies and of the Federal Reserve itself.
  • He is pro-life.
  • He is pro-America, unlike his potential opponent, President Obama.
  • He is pro-Israel
  • He opposes the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.
  • He favors domestic oil drilling and exploration.
To be fair to Romney, I’m not clear where he stands on some of these issues. That’s part of the problem. However, I know where Obama falls out on every one of these issues, and there couldn’t be a clearer distinction than the one between Obama and Perry.
Forbes came out with an article on Wednesday, August 24, speculating on who Perry might pick for a Vice Presidential running mate. You can read about Forbes’ speculation here. Not to be too big of a spoiler, they’re suggesting that Governor Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio or Congressman Paul Ryan should be high on the list of potentials.
For Jimmy Carter, there has been some vindication in that it is possible to be a worse president than he was. Some of us who recall ‘the Carter Years’ never thought that we’d see it in our lifetimes, but we were proven wrong.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. I would not consider him a true conservative. I think he is W part two. His involvement with the NAFTA highway and other immigration issues makes him suspect. That being said, every candidate has serious flaws.

  2. Trestin – At some point we will need to get behind somebody to defeat Obama. It might end up being Perry or it might be another candidate. But O has to go.

  3. One difference: Everyone knew where Jimmy C. went to school, what he did in the Navy, who his relatives were, etc. ad infinitum. obama has nothing like that to fall back on – and now it's been pointed out.

  4. WoFat nailed it. Carter was a known…hopefully the electorate learned a lesson, and we can all refer to future unknown inexperienced candidates as "not another Obama mistake"…hopefully.

    Romney will fade away now (after stimulating the economy with his campaign), good guy, but not what we need (…but all fathers of five boys should recieve and award, I'm just sayin').

    The only problem with those three VP names…they would all make a better P. Good problem to have.

    Perry is not like W, if only because of the times. Perry can learn from W's mistakes.

    Trestin, free trade is good, lax border security bad…I'm not sure Perry was on the wrong side of that one, I could be wrong.

  6. Overall I like Perry although he has some issues with being too Muslim friendly or naive Muslim extremist ties. Rubio, Paul Ryan, or Michele Bachmann would be good picks for the VP position. I like Chris Christie but I think he needs to stay in NJ for now. Plus, he's for the Mosque at Ground Zero and seems to be a dhimmi.

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