COLUMBIA, SC — Speaking to a crowd of Republican Party officials and activists here Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry didn’t mention his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, but laid out the stakes for a general election contest he says will pit advocates of the nanny state against those who follow the nation’s founding documents.
“The central issue of this election is going to be an administration who believes Washington must be our caretaker,” Perry said, “and the people who want Washington to only care for their constitutional responsibilities.”
It’s a classic conservative line that Perry seems to think his time in Texas gives him specific mastery of.
“As governor, I governed on just a few basic principles,” Perry said. “Number one is, ‘don’t spend all the money.'”
The remaining principles: “Keep the taxes as low as you can while still delivering all the essential services…Have a regulator climate that is fair and predictable and a legal system that does not allow for oversuing.
“Then get out of the way, governor, and let the private sector do what the private sector does best: create jobs and create wealth,” Perry said.
South Carolina is clearly very important to Perry, who kicked off his campaign in Charleston before coming back to the state this weekend after stops Iowa and New Hampshire. Today’s event was a luncheon hosted by the South Carolina Republican Party, who’ll be featuring other Republican presidential contenders as the state primary draws closer.
Perry did not take questions from reporters at the event in Columbia, nor did he veer off his fiscal-focused script here to delve into the evangelical and social conservative rhetoric that’s also been a highlight of his still-new campaign.
The focus in his was 100% President Obama, and what Perry said was the strict difference between Obama’s theory of government doing for you and Perry’s vision of government staying away from you.
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