Rick Perry's book a treasure trove for foes
'I wouldn’t have written that book if I was going to run for the presidency,' Perry once said. | AP Photo Close
By MAGGIE HABERMAN & ALEXANDER BURNS | 9/2/11 4:30 AM EDT
Rick Perry describes Social Security as a “violent” attack on core American values. He says Sarah Palin may have been right that the Affordable Care Act created death panels. He says it was “unprincipled” to establish the Department of Homeland Security.
That’s not the provocative, distorted language of a 2012 attack ad – at least, not yet. Rather, those are words right out of the Texas governor’s 2010 book, “Fed Up!”, a slim volume that may be one of the biggest gifts ever given to the opponents of a presidential candidate.
It’s a treasure trove of oppo research, a target so ripe that Perry himself pointed to it last year as prime evidence he wasn’t interested in running for president.
“I wouldn’t have written that book if I was going to run for the presidency of the United States,” he said in one national interview.
On that point, Democrats and Republicans agree: There’s little upside for Perry in a book that’s chock full of incendiary statements about everything from entitlement programs to the Department of Homeland Security, to the Supreme Court.
Ty Matsdorf, communications director for the Democratic research group American Bridge, said the book shows Perry “laying out what any sane or rational candidate wouldn’t even dream of saying.”
“This is what he put down and there’s no backing away from it,” Matsdorf said. “I don’t think a national candidate would, in their worst nightmare, ever think about having this stuff out there."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62531.html#ixzz1Wn8CHZ1e
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