What Perry might be like as President

Excerpted from the Daily Tribune
By Bob Palmer

I don’t know how really conservative Perry is. Perry is a cunning political animal and is determined to always appear conservative. He will not be a friend to the poor and workers. He scoffs at environmental issues.
His policies will favor big business, oil industry and financial barons. He will certainly try to live up to his campaign pledge to be a pro-business, job-creation-through-private-sector President.

As with George W. Bush, expect Perry’s vice president, Condoleeza Rice in this case, to be the senior partner at least in the first two years.

Also, you should not be surprised if Perry makes some disastrous cabinet picks. It will take at least two years to weed out the cronies from the competent.

As governor, Perry has been content to let the legislative branch take the lead. The Texas Constitution relegates the governor to cheerleading duties and it may be difficult to gauge just what impact Perry had on various bills.

Still, Perry does show signs of thinking outside the box. He has called for bullet trains on interstate medians, a Trans-Texas corridor, and cancer inoculations for teen girls. All of these initiatives either never left the station or were junked.

I suspect the same fate awaits most of the Tea Party platform he ran on. Without super majorities in both houses, efforts to repeal Obamacare and privatize Social Security will go nowhere. Perry wisely stayed away from supporting major alterations in Medicare, although his ideas about Medicaid may gain traction.

In foreign policy, I expect Perry to be vocally America First which will irritate our European allies. This will also please Perry. The madder Europe becomes with us, the more Perry likes it and the more it pleases the folks who got Perry elected.

He will make every effort to bring peace to our border with Mexico, short of legalizing marijuana in this country. Mexico and Central America will have a higher priority with his administration than they have seen in many years.

In military matters, Perry will lean on the Air Force. An all out bombing campaign on the Afghan-Pakistan border in an effort to force the Taliban to the peace table would not surprise me.

I look forward to a Perry Administration with limited expectations, but that seems to be what most Americans want.