I wonder what all this speculation about the Republican Presidential candidate is about.  I realize that the Republicans need to choose a candidate–but now??!!  There is a part of me that says if the Republicans pick a frontrunner now, the liberal media will have more time to destroy that candidate and we will have four more years of President Obama.  I am not at all sure this country could survive four more years of President Obama.

Having said that, I have a few observations and articles to recommend.  Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal posted an article on Thursday (unfortunately this is a subscription only article, so I will try to summarize it) talking about Texas Governor Rick Perry.  Governor Perry spoke Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference.  The speech is posted at Breitbart TV in its entirety.  It is worth listening to for a lot of reasons.

Mr. Henninger points out a few basic facts in his Wall Street Journal article:

“The Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas recently estimated that since June 2009, Texas has produced about 37% of the net new jobs in the U.S. At The Journal’s offices this week, Gov. Perry said a closer look puts the Texas new-jobs number closer to 48%. Whatever. It’s an astounding feat.”

The article further observes:

“…Without the details of the Texas economic boom, this is a normal candidacy. But the details are impressive. Texas is a zero income-tax state, and Mr. Perry gives the impression he’d die at the Alamo before allowing one. The state is historically business-friendly. I recall attending the 1992 GOP convention in Houston, visiting from New York, and feeling as if I were in a capitalist utopia. You could argue that many of the state’s new companies are mainly fleeing intolerable hells, such as California. But Texas and Mr. Perry keep producing new welcome mats, notably the recent passage of a loser-pays tort-reform bill. Mr. Perry says Haley Barbour told him they’d need turnstiles on the border if that tort bill passed, and indeed the in-migration of doctors to Texas is significant.”

There are three people that I would be happy to see on the Republican ticket in 2012.  Any two of them would make me very happy.  They are Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann.  Most of the other people running I could probably support, but much less enthusiastically.  My biggest fear is that in 2012, the media will pick the Republican candidate.  They will like this person until the actual campaign for President begins.  Then, they will turn on him and support Barack Obama.  That’s exactly what they did with John McCain, and it worked.  I see no reason why they will not try that again.  It is up to the Republican primary voters to be aware of the media and its role in the election process and to make sure they do not allow the media to determine their candidate.  Otherwise we will have four more years of Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, I think the Republican primary voters need to take a good look at Governor Perry and what is happening in Texas.