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Rick Perry Has a Weapon, But to Use It He’ll Have to Become a Talker Posted: 16 Nov 2011 06:20 AM PST The way I see it, Rick Perry’s campaign has two problems. First, it can’t build and sustain momentum. His economic plan got a quick round of applause — and why not, considering that it was built from virtually every serious conservative tax and spending reform idea of the last 15 years — then fell back into relative obscurity. Every time Perry tries to grab a positive headline, he’s knocked out of the media spotlight by either another Herman Cain campaign bumble or a concentrated chunk of Newt Gingrich brilliance. He needs something with grip. His second problem is the whole “I’m a doer, not a talker” thing. There isn’t a conservative in the world ready for another Texan President who didn’t think it was important to sell his ideas to the public and never tried to improve his ability to sway the public to his way of thinking. It may not be fair for conservatives to shy away from Perry for his attitudinal resemblance to George W. Bush, but after eight years of carrying the Presidents arguments when he could barely rouse himself to do it, it’s understandable. These problems aren’t insurmountable, though. Perry is a clever and experienced politician. He’s won a few elections, even if they weren’t all that closely contested. He ought to be able to come up with one good point he can hammer for a couple weeks that will get him the attention he needs to distinguish himself from the candidates ahead of him. Yesterday, he just might have found that big idea he needs. Perry unveiled his government reform plan in a speech in Iowa, which included a little gem he called the “part-time Citizen Congress”. "We have a lot of well-intentioned members of Congress. But they have become creatures of Washington," Perry said. "They are completely detached from the people, people who are struggling to get by, and those people sure can't vote themselves a pay raise." "We send members of Congress to Washington to look after America, not enrich themselves. But too often, they are taken captive by that Washington culture, and that's why we need a part-time Congress. I say send them home to live under that the laws they pass among the people they represent." This part-time Congress would allow legislators to spend more time in their home states and cut their salaries. Salaries would then be cut in half a second time until Congress passes a balanced budget amendment. Intriguing, no? Okay, as practical ideas go, it’s not very good. It had as much of a chance of passing as does Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (and, yes, I do see the irony) and it won’t do a darned thing to fix the real problems of big government, but it has two big advantages. First, it focuses the discussion on the fecklessness of Congress, which never hurts a Republican candidate. Second, it’s likely to drive the Democrats nuts. Okay, let me correct that. It’s already begun. Asked Tuesday about Perry's proposal, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) responded first by poking fun at the Texas governor's performance at last week's GOP presidential debate, when Perry was unable to remember the name of the third government agency that he would like to eliminate if he's elected president. "Rick Perry?" Hoyer asked. "I've heard that name. Let's see. Oh, he's the one who has three – yes, I can't remember what they are, but yes." On the specifics of Perry's plan, which the GOP hopeful unveiled Tuesday morning at an event in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, Hoyer panned the proposal as a move to shore up support among conservatives rather than a genuine policy idea. "Is this a serious proposal that he's making for a country that has very high unemployment, whose budget deficit is larger than it's ever been in history, and we have two wars that we're confronting and trying to bring to conclusion?" Hoyer asked. "If this is what he thinks is pandering to the tea party, it is not, in my opinion, speaking to the issues that the American public feels are very, very critical to them – jobs being the number-one issue." Perry’s staff has to be jumping up and down in childish glee right now, since Hoyer just provided most of the script for its next campaign commercial. All they need to do is run Hoyer’s comment alongside the record of abysmal Democratic failure to pass a budget for more than two years or introduce a meaningful jobs bill in…well, ever. A couple graphics of the rising unemployment rate as Hoyer’s compatriots ran the House wouldn’t hurt either. So it’s not a great practical idea, but it could be a heck of a way to push himself back into the thick of the race, if he can sell the voters on it. That means he’s going to have to get better at something he doesn’t seem to like much at all. I’ll be interested to see if he’s serious enough to give talking a real try.

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