This article about Rick Perry was written awhile ago and is a little lengthy but I felt it was worth posting. I found it enlightening as it lays out his credentials and how qualified he really is to be president. Perry's experience at home and abroad exceeds that of any other GOP candidate, and he has proven by his actions that he adheres to conservative principles and values.
Rick Perry's Biggest Advantage in 2016The governor is establishing his credentials in a surprising area: foreign policy.
Texas Governor Rick Perry quietly traveled to Europe last week to assert his foreign-policy credentials. He got what he was looking for—but in an unexpected way.
Perry planned to visit the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, and Ukraine. He was to meet business and energy groups, confer with Ukrainian political leaders, pay his respects to the victims of the Second World War in Auschwitz and Warsaw, and deliver two major speeches in England and Poland. But he cut his trip short after the British leg to return home and oversee his state’s response to the Ebola infection, which had already killed one Liberian visitor and sickened two nurses in Dallas, stoked public panic, and forced President Obama to cancel campaign stops....
...The market niche Perry is eyeing will be a crowded one in 2016...
...The first advantage is that unlike many Washington-based competitors for the foreign-policy-hawk vote, Perry has not left any fingerprints on the budget plans that are cutting the Army and Marines to their smallest size since 1940. Senator Marco Rubio can credibly say that he opposed the defense cuts all along, but Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan voted for the 2011 sequester deal. Perry’s fellow Texan Ted Cruz has championed even bigger spending cuts that would inevitably impinge on defense spending.
The second advantage is that unlike Rubio, Governor Chris Christie, and—most relevantly—former Governor Jeb Bush, Perry can assert distance from the unpopular pieces of the George W. Bush foreign-policy legacy by virtue of his own famously adversarial relationship with Bush and his Texas team. In 2010, Karl Rove and other former Bush insiders backed a primary challenge by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison against Perry’s bid for a third term as governor...
...In London, Perry took another important step toward establishing his national-security bona fides. In his speech at the Royal United Services Institute, which I attended, and in his canceled Warsaw speech, the governor championed an assertive American foreign policy against ISIS in the Middle East and Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe, while calling European governments to account for their weak response to anti-Semitic attacks. “Forbearance in the face of vicious ideas and conduct is not tolerance. It is weakness,†he told his audience....
...Perry’s London speech focused on the threat from ISIS and the Middle East. In Warsaw, he would have spoken about another—nearer—challenge: from Vladimir Putin and a revanchist Russia. In his prepared, undelivered remarks, Perry paid due tribute to the fact that it is the president, not governors—not even Texas governors—who make America’s foreign policy. Then he added his own personal view about the force destabilizing Eastern Europe:
The president of Russia, Mr. Putin, may regard treaty obligations as so many words on paper, and just as easily tossed aside.
But we operate a little differently in the NATO counties: We actually keep our commitments.
That helps explain why, after nearly 70 years, there is still a NATO while the Iron Curtain, Eastern Bloc, and Warsaw Pact all belong to a miserable history we were all glad to put behind us.
As before in history, holding to our NATO obligations can mean the difference between threats invited and threats deterred.
Worse troubles are always avoided when we stick together as the inseparable allies that we are and offer more than consoling words to friends like Ukraine.
Hostile actors need to know that in every circumstance we defend our interests and keep our word....
...In both the London and Warsaw speeches, Perry vigorously expounded his core strategic idea: that North America had the potential to replace Russia as a reliable and price-competitive energy supplier, particularly of natural gas, delivered in liquid form. “When Europe’s energy sources are more diverse, the nations of Europe will be more secure,†he said in London. “When its economies are more integrated, Europe will be more competitive, resilient, and prosperous.â€
This is a position that would be broadly endorsed by any of the Republican candidates for president. But the minute the foreign-policy conversation shifts from treaties and weapons systems to energy resources and transportation systems, the resume of a governor rather than a senator shifts from a handicap to a qualification....
---full article---
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/rick-perrys-biggest-advantage-in-2016/381602/
