Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Rick Perry Attacks Trump in Bid to Join Fox Debate

The rise of Donald Trump in the opinion polls has given the Republican Party's establishment cause for alarm. The multitude of GOP candidates for the White House has caused Fox News to limit the participants in the first debate among them, scheduled for August 6, to just ten based on national polling popularity. In a bid to break into that Top Ten, former Texas Governor Rick Perry has done what someone in the party should have done long ago. He has attacked the odious Trump campaign for its hateful posturing and the venom it has added to the political process.

Yesterday, Rick Perry said, "Let no one be mistaken -- Donald Trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded," he said at an event at the Willard Hotel in Washington. "He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as 'Trumpism': a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued."

He added, "Donald Trump the reality television star is a great generator of ratings. But Donald Trump the candidate is a sower of division, wrongly demonizing Mexican-Americans for political sport. It is wrong to paint with a broad brush Hispanic men and women in this country who have fought and died for freedom from the Alamo to Afghanistan. He scapegoats Hispanics to appeal to our worst instincts, when we need a president who appeals to our best."

Furthermore, "His [Mr. Trump's] comments have reached a new low in American politics," Mr. Perry said in a statement released Saturday. "His attack on veterans make him unfit to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he should immediately withdraw from the race for President."

This journal agrees completely with Governor Perry, and his assessment that Trumpism is the modern-day equivalent of the nativist Know-Nothings of the 19th century is correct. The only question is, What took the Governor so long to say these things?

Charitably, one might say that, in the interests of party unity, he followed Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not speak evil of fellow Republicans." Under this interpretation of his actions, Governor Perry held his tongue as long as he could, and finally, human decency trumped (an unfortunate verb here) factional cohesion.

Nevertheless, his actions also seem consistent with a sense of desperation to crack the Fox Top Ten. Fox claims it will use the average of five national polls to determine the composition of its debate invitees, but it has declined to name them. So, the best one can estimate is that Mr. Perry's standing is ninth, tenth, or eleventh depending on which polls one uses. Since the debate will amount to free TV time, the entire party is aware that those whose popularity is minute at this stage will have a dreadful time becoming or remaining relevant. Tenth is good enough for now while eleventh might be the kiss of death. The cut off date for the calculation is August 4.

James Hohman at the Washington Post noted, "Perry has had three spikes in [media] mentions over the past two weeks. All were Trump related. It began on July 16, when Trump suggested Perry should be required to take an IQ test before being allowed to participate in any GOP presidential debate. Two days later, Perry interest spiked again when he seized on Trump's comments about John McCain, saying The Donald had disqualified himself to be commander-in-chief. Then there was the speech Wednesday [as reported in part above]."

Polling status this early in the campaign is largely about name recognition. Media mentions can boost that, and even without the analytics Mr. Hohman offered, any campaign manager worth a paycheck knows that attacking the front-runner is a proven way to drive up name recognition. The question is whether Mr. Perry's conscience kicked in soon enough to get him a place at the Fox debate.

© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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